Lineage
by ruth baulding
Summary: AU!Jedi Apprentice. Book I: In which master and apprentice meet for the first time, enjoy a disastrous adventure courtesy of Xanatos DuCrion, and reap the fruits of patience and fortitude. A fanciful retelling of the original.
1. Chapter 1

**Lineage**

* * *

**Part 1. **

**An Introduction**

Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn folded his arms across his broad chest in defiance. "We have spoken on this matter before, and I believe I am more than justified in my refusal," he stated, forcing his mellifluous voice to remain level and calm.

The diminutive green master hovering beside him, seated in his repulsor-chair with the easy imperiousness of a much more magnificent tyrant, twitched his long ears and smiled. A rather smug smile, Qui Gon thought. "Hmph. Testy you are. To persuade you again I will not try. Discussed your decision the Council has. Decided best it would be for all to uphold your refusal."

"The Council agrees? With me? About this?" the tall Jedi asked, his leonine face darkening with the shadow of some emotion. "May I ask why?"

Yoda snorted. "Doubt your own wisdom, do you? The reasons you have already given us, many times over. Tiresome to beat a dead gundark it is."

The emotion faintly discernible on Qui Gon's face smoothed away at the touch of his will. "I refer to the Council's reasons," he corrected, though he knew the ancient Jedi's misunderstanding had been quite deliberate.

"Not your affair are the Council's private deliberations," he was rebuffed. "Enough for you is this: advised you are _not_ to seek another Padawan."

"I see," the tall man replied, though he most certainly did not.

"Good," Yoda chuffed, and with a single burning look at his interlocutor, he directed the chair forward down the hall, away on his next errand.

Qui Gon stood and looked after him for a long minute. Then he released a short, frustrated breath, and strode away in the opposite direction, his long legs carrying him quickly down the broad, light-drenched concourse.

* * *

At forty-five years old, Qui Gon still had the energy and strength of a man at least ten years younger; and so it was that he found himself in the senior dojo, happily dispelling any traces of suspicion or ill temper through a vigorous and extended saber training session. He challenged each and every Knight and master to enter the main salle, and a number of their older Padawans as well. Twenty opponents and twenty victories later, he was considering whether he ought to seek out Cin Drallig and challenge the swordsmaster himself – just for amusement – when he was surprised by an unexpected visitor to the sparring arena.

"Why, Qui Gon," the elegant silver-bearded man smiled at him. "I see that time hath not staled thy infinite variety…though I must say, it has frosted your beard a trifle."

The tall Jedi master deactivated his weapon and made the newcomer a very deep bow. "Master Dooku," he said respectfully. The man standing before him had been his teacher for many years, and he this man's Padawan learner, bound to him by an ancient and well-nigh sacred oath. "It has been a long time since our last meeting."

Dooku glanced about the room, his eyes dark and sharp as a hawk's, set deeply either side of his aristocratic nose. When he was satisfied that they had relative privacy, he activated his own saber and saluted his former pupil. Qui Gon noted that it was not a training saber in the older Jedi's hand, but the elegant green blade which he carried always, with its distinctive curving hilt. "Have you forgotten what little Makashi you ever managed to learn?" Dooku queried in a stern voice, half teasing, half serious.

"What is the penalty if I do not meet your expectations?" Qui Gon replied.

Dooku swept his blade around in an elegant flourish. "Dinner with me – and meek acceptance of any advice I may wish to bestow between appetizer and dessert."

"I see," Qui Gon said for the second time that day. Again, he did not quite see at all what his elder wanted from him. However, he was very clear on what _he _ wanted. He flashed into his leading attack as suddenly as a blizzard on Hoth.

The mock duel that followed was a sight to behold, but it did not issue into Qui Gon's twenty-first victory of the day.

* * *

"Your Makashi was appalling," Dooku sighed, turning the narrow stem of a wine glass between his neatly manicured fingers. "Still, I must admit you aquitted yourself well. They say you are now one of the greatest swordsmen in the Order. You do your old master proud."

Qui Gon offered a tight smile in return. He refused wine from the droid waiter.

"Don't be offended by the…ah…excess," Dooku warned him, waving a hand to encompass the opulent interior of the exclusive dining establishment in the penthouse level of Coruscant's most exclusive hotel. "The owner is a cousin of mine. The poor fellow takes it as a personal insult if I don't show up once a year or so."

Qui Gon shook his head. Dooku was an ascetical man – but he had very refined taste. It was amusing that his former mentor's idea of compassion should be so conveniently linked to the finest wines and most exotic culinary delicacies.

"It has been too long, " Dooku continued, meditatively. "I was very sorry to hear about DuCrion, you know."

That had Qui Gon jolting to attention. Three years had passed, and he could sometimes forget that… "Xanatos turned," he said heavily. "I do not deserve your condolences. As his master, the tragedy is partially my fault."

"Indeed? The boy was talented, well bred…and he chose to remain at his hereditary seat, fulfilling the role which was his by birthright. I see no great tragedy, only a difficult choice between two paths."

"He turned on me," Qui Gon insisted. "He embraced anger, and he made a vow of revenge. That is the Dark."

"Yes, I am sorry about that," Dooku assured him smoothly. "And when will you take another Learner?"

"You know full well that I have forsworn teaching. And you can easily see why."

"Not at all. You did marvelously with your first Padawan. And DuCrion was ... exceptionalluy well trained."

Qui Gon drained a glass of water scented with citrus and delicate floral essences. "The Council has recommended that I do not take another student," he answered. "SO you see, even Yoda will admit that Xanatos is a failure not to be dismissed."

But here Dooku surprised his guest by breaking into a short, barking laugh. His eyes glittered with sharp humor. "No, no," he said. "You are mistaken. I did not sit on the Council for all those years to know nothing of their internal workings. Xanatos has nothing to do with it, let me assure you. They are simply afraid that you are a…well…unwholesome influence. What? You must admit, Qui Gon, that you are not exactly a _company man_."

The tall Jedi's face stilled. "You are suggesting that the Council thinks any Padawan of mine will be instilled with rebellious, independent qualities? With a habit of questioning authority? That I will leave a line of mavericks as my legacy?"

Dooku raised one hand in an eloquent gesture and offered a very understated shrug. Qui Gon merely glowered, silently absorbing this all too likely truth.

_We'll see about that,_ he thought.

* * *

Master Troon Palo, chaperone and beloved veteran caretaker of the Dragon Clan, widened his deep amber eyes when he opened the doors to see Qui Gon Jin standing placidly on the threshold to the initiates' quarters.

"To what do we owe this pleasure?" the enormous, furry Jedi growled, making a short bow to his human colleague.

"I find myself detained on Coruscant for two days due to a transport delay. I wondered if perhaps you are planning an exhibition tournament in the near future?"

Troon's mouth quirked into a feral smile, his sharp teeth peeking over his deep purple lips. "Not in the next two days, Master Jinn," he answered slyly. "However, you are welcome to join us as a guest. The younglings are just preparing for morning exercise. I'm sure they would be honored to meet you."

And so, before he could change his mind again, Qui Gon found himself introduced to a gaggle of children ranging in age from nine to twelve standard years, a colorful and unruly sea of hair, scales, horns, and lekku sprouting from the top of their heads, which was all he could see of them as they very dutifully made him a deep bow.

"Off you go. A quick snack and ten minutes' break, and then I want you lined up at this door. Stragglers will be _dealt with,_" Troon added in a stentorian voice which rumbled with unspoken threat. The shrieks and giggles this statement inspired brought Qui Gon fond memories of his own time in the protective enclave of the younglings' dormitory.

Brushing aside sentiment, he found himself a seat in the spacious play and living area, and reached into the Living Force to get a _feel_ for thesechildren. He sensed immediately that the vast majority were too shy or intimidated by his presence to approach him on their own initiative. A few were terrified, one or two resentful of his intrusion, and one…Qui Gon opened his eyes, his gaze locking onto that of a chestnut-haired human boy across the room. A pair of blue eyes stared back into his own with open, unabashed curiosity.

Qui Gon waved the boy over with the universal hand gesture for _come here, _ but the boy responded with a tiny shake of the head, a deeply apologetic look, and a short bow. Qui Gon then raised his eyebrows, and was startled to see the boy echo the expression, a fleeting lop-sided smile playing around his mouth. _Young scamp,_ the tall Jedi thought, as he stood to carefully thread his way across the room to where the bold child stood leaning against the wall.

He crouched down on eye level with the boy. "Is there a reason you don't wish to part company with that wall?" he inquired, looking the youngling directly in the face.

The child colored a little, ashamed at his minor disobedience, but he quickly looked up again into Qui Gon's face, that elusive smile still tugging at his mouth. "I'm sorry , master," he said in a crisp accent that marked him as the scion of an upper class Core family. "But I don't like to expose my back to a crowded room. Especially at snack time," he added, the ephemeral smile finally blossoming into a full fledged smirk.

Qui Gon felt the tremor in the Force and snapped a hand behind his back to catch the flying muja fruit before it impacted. He wheeled round; the child who had launched the projectile was frozen, mouth open in a small "o" of dismay, his shock of white hair matched by his white face.

Troon Palo's roar of disapproval shook the rafters.

* * *

"I hope Master Troon won't be too hard on Bruck, "Qui Gon's new acquaintance confided. He had to take two steps to every one of the Jedi master's enormous strides.

"Why is that?"

"It's difficult to explain. But it would be hard to feel sorry for Bruck _and_ to –um.."

Qui Gon waited, but the child had hastily swallowed the rest of his words.

"You mean that it would be hard to resent him and feel pity for him at the same time?"

Pit, pat, pit, pat,pit, pat. The boy kept pace beside him. "Um…yes, master."

"To feel _resentment_ is unworthy, young one," Qui Gon told him gravely. "You should welcome the feeling of pity if it drives resentment out of your heart."

Pit pat, pit pat, pit pat. The boy was thinking it over. Qui Gon waited, and stopped before a turbolift.

"What if one felt pity for someone who did a wrong thing?" the boy asked as they entered the gleaming lift compartment. "And it drove out resentment of their bad actions? Then wouldn't you feel sympathy for an individual more than desire for the _right_?"

Qui Gon's jaw dropped momentarily. Since when had Chakora Seva's philosophical conundrums become common texts for the initiate classes? "Where did you read that?" he demanded, more sharply than he intended.

The youngling glanced up, startled by his vehemence. "I -I didn't," he said. "Did I say something to offend you, master?"

"No," the tall Jedi assured him. "You simply took me off guard." The lift slowed and the doors opened, issuing them into the Room of a Thousand Fountains. "Come walk with me some more," he invited, and the boy happily trotted forward, almost skipping in the cool, moisture laden air. Qui Gon chuckled a little at his antics, and turned toward a favorite path. Then he stopped, and deliberately chose a new path, a narrow trail of stepping stones he seldom used. The boy followed him, at once cheerful and solemn, jumping over the stones three at a time, content to leave Qui Gon to his thoughts.

The stone bench provided a stunning view of the waterfall. They sat watching the spray dance and billow in the air, coating the drooping fronds of plants with millions of glistening droplets.

"May I ask you a few questions?" Qui Gon broke the silence.

The boy kicked his legs a little; he was not so tall that they reached the mossy ground. "Yes," he said, still watching the cascade of water.

"Tell me: what is in your heart about the boy named Bruck? The truth."

"Well….I want somebody to make him be good," the boy responded.

"How does one do that?" Qui Gon prompted.

"I don't know. Really he has to make himself," the child amended. "But perhaps someone could _inspire _him."

The talk Jedi noted the careful, experimental use of a new vocabulary word. "Hm. You mean by example?"

The boy turned to him, eyes solemn. "Possibly," he said. A beat. "Or some other way." His mouth twitched and his eyes began to sparkle again.

"You mean with a _saber?_" Qui Gon guessed, keeping his expression neutral.

The boy's legs kicked faster. "Maybe," he said. He kept his chin tucked into his chest, fighting down a surge of glee at the prospect.

Qui Gon studied him for a moment. "What about you? Are you trying every day to be as good as you want Bruck to be?"

The child glanced up at him. "No, I want to be more than that," he stated with certainty.

"Really? How?"

"Well...," the boy said, that ghost of humor fluttering over his features and down Qui Gon's spine. "I want to be _inspirational."_ He turned back to the waterfall, eyes dancing.

It had been a long time since Qui Gon had laughed so hard.

* * *

"Are you hungry?" the tall Jedi asked two hours later.

"Most the time," the boy admitted.

"No surprise. I remember well how it felt to be growing so fast. How old are you now?" Qui Gon led the way out the west exit, and headed down the corridor for a dining hall on that level. It was time for noon-meal, and they should be able to find a small table.

"Ten. But it would be forty-nine on Vetruvia."

"Forty-nine? Stars. Perhaps I should call _you_ master."

"Oh, no," the boy prattled away. He hesitated, doing some mental math. "You would be, um.., three hundred something I think."

Qui Gon winced at the implied estimate of his age.

"And Master _Yoda_," the youngling continued cheerfully, "Would be about a _million_ years old there. They have a birthing day ceremony, you know, which involves this intoxicating _drink_ called fermis. And you have to drink one cup of it for each year of life, so I was just supposing…"

"Best not to think too much about it," Qui Gon advised. "Here. Sit down. I'll bring us back some food." He ignored the questioning and curious looks which he earned from others in the hall. If he wished to eat noon-meal with some particular youngling for no particular reason, was it anyone's business but his own?

True to his word, the boy proved to be quite hungry and laid into the meal with a relish that suggested this was his ordinary condition. "Do you ever skip meals on a mission?" he asked Qui Gon conversationally.

"I'm afraid so," the Jedi master smiled.

"Then you should eat more now," the boy advised.

"Perhaps I have better focus when I'm slightly famished," Qui Gon suggested.

The boy tilted his head to one side, considering. He considered through the next three mouthfuls and a long drink of blue milk.

"The Vetruvians fast for a week when they want to consult their oracle," he said at last. "But Madame Nu said that was a form of _auto-flagellation."_

"She did? What does that mean?"

"I don't know," the boy shrugged. "But she frowned so it's bad."

Qui Gon could well imagine the archivist's dour expression as she made this remark. "So you've been studying Vetruvia. You must enjoy the Archives."

The child nodded. "But not as much as saber practice."

_Of course not,_ Qui Gon thought. _Of course not._

* * *

"Obi Wan?" Troon Palo repeated. "No, nobody has made a request for him yet. But he's only ten, you know. And human males are notoriously immature at that age. I don't really expect-"

"Tell me the worst of it now," Qui Gon ordered.

The clan master leaned back in his chair and waved the office door shut with one enormous furry hand. "Impatient," he said.

"And?"

"Sharp tongue. Impertinent little blighter."

"Intelligent," Qui Gon decided.

"Too much so. Very cunning. Wicked sense of humor, too."

"Not necessarily a fault, Troon."

"Granted. What else? Eats his weight each day, but that's normal. Occasional insomniac. Nightmares and so on. Might have prescient visions."

"At _ten?_"

"You asked for the worst. Imagine that at fifteen, my friend."

"Go on."

"Three levels ahead of age group in saber. Might give you a run for your money."

"I doubt it. Three levels?"

"Burned Senior Padawan Asaro last week during a demonstration."

"Really?"

"Yes. Djem-So attack three right across the backside. Very fast and hard."

"Good for him," Qui Gon grunted. He did not care for Asaro's inflated ego.

"The boy's cute."

"How is that a fault?" Qui Gon asked, perplexed.

Troon leaned forward. "Because he'll wrap you right around his finger. You'll fall in love with him, fail to discipline him properly, indulge all his vices, and make a monster out of him. That's the worst part of all."

"I take it you don't approve," Qui Gon replied, eyebrows raised.

"Approve of what?" Troon grinned. ":You haven't requested anything."

"That's right," Qui Gon shot back, and took his leave.

* * *

"Made inquiries in initiate quarters, you did." Yoda's tone was rich with disapproval.

"I have the right to do so," Qui Gon pointed out mildly. He kept walking.

"Hmmph. Not looking for Padawan, are you?" the ancient master asked pointedly.

"I promise you, master, that I am _not_ looking for a Padawan," Qui Gon answered tranquilly. "Nor will I be for quite some great number of years."

"What?" Yoda's ears perked in mock surprise. "Submitting to advice of Council, are you, Master Jinn? Call a healer should I?"

The tall Jedi took a few more paces. "No, master," he said beatifically. "I feel quite well." He offered his deepest bow and turned a convenient corner.

* * *

"There's something different about you today," Tahl said, her golden eyes sliding across him, penetrating his façade with ease.

"I'm a day older and a day wiser," he suggested.

"You're forty years older and a day wiser," she corrected him.

"As you say." Qui Gon drew in a deep breath and savored the subtle aroma of the tea. His two hands dwarfed the tiny porcelain bowl, but he held it with practiced grace.

"Hm." Tahl drank from her cup and returned it to its place, held between two hands level with the solar plexus. "You're plotting another act of defiance."

Qui Gon took a drink in his turn and returned the bowl to starting position. He met her gaze levelly. "I am plotting nothing."

"Liar. You're …already well-entrenched in an act of defiance."

"I do things besides wreak havoc and sow mayhem," he said peevishly.

"I should like to learn of such things," Tahl quipped.

He set his bowl down and she echoed the action. Silence stretched between them.

"You're taking a Padawan!" she exclaimed.

"I'm leaving on an extended mission at first light. Don't be ridiculous."

"That's ironic coming from you."

"And that's a compliment, coming from you."

Tahl gathered up both bowls, her strong fingers brushing lightly against his. "Come back safely," she said. "May the Force be with you."

* * *

"Will you meditate with me tonight, little one?"

"I – oh. Yes, Master Jinn. Only-"

"I've already informed Master Palo. Don't fret."

The boy pattered along beside him again, only his mood was intangibly different. There was a stormcloud overshadowing the bright, lively mind.

"You're leaving tomorrow, master, aren't you?"

Qui Gon found an empty meditation room, just a spare chamber off the hall, outfitted with a lamp and three or four round cushions. A simple floral inlay adorned the walls, nothing more. He pointed to one of the cushions and waited while the boy settled himself down, moving through fidgets and then restlessness to a ready calm. He sat cross legged opposite.

"I have a mission, yes. And it may take a little while. Several weeks at least. I would like to speak with you again when I return."

The child nodded, wide eyed.

"Obi Wan."

"Yes, master?"

"Tell me why you were looking at me so intently yesterday morning, when I entered the clan playroom."

To Qui Gon's astonishment, the boy blushed deeply. "Oh. I recognized you," he muttered.

"I don't remember meeting you before," the Jedi master prompted.

"I…had a dream," the boy explained. "You were in it. Not a regular dream," he added. "One from the Force. Do you ever…?"

Qui Gon shook his head. "Not often. But some Jedi do. If you do, then it is important for you to learn how to manage them and how to understand them properly. Will you tell me what happened in this dream which I stumbled into?"

A tentative smile. "You were not so tall in the dream."

"Indeed?"

"No. You were only a little bigger than me, actually. And we were fighting together. With sabers. Mine is blue."

"In the dream?"

"Well….I mean, it's going to be blue. We were fighting and running. And swimming too I think. You were fast and it was hard to keep up but I'm pretty fast too when I try hard. Bant is ridiculously fast, but she's Mon Cal.:"

"Is that all that happens in the dream?"

"I don't really remember. I'm sorry. Master Troon said not to grasp at it."

"He gave you sound advice. It's not important. Now, are you ready?"

"Maybe."

Qui Gon waited patiently. "What's bothering you?"

"You're not coming back." The youngling said simply, his blue eyes pleading for some sort of reassurance or solid evidence to the contrary.

Qui Gon released a breath. "Whether I come back or not, it is the will of the Force," he said finally. "You must keep your focus in the present moment, little one."

It wasn't what the boy had wanted, but he dipped his head. "Yes, master."

Qui Gon left the next morning, his heart full of this conversation and their shared meditation afterward. He did indeed come back – but not for two and a half years.

And he found that much had changed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Lineage**

* * *

**Part 2: Homecoming**

The extended mission lasted over two years.

Far too long, much longer than the "several weeks" Qui Gon had initially predicted. The Temple itself felt oddly foreign to him; after so many months of relying solely on the Living Force and himself, the presence of so many Jedi under one -albeit colossal- roof seemed disconcerting. The sense that much had changed, that the river of life had flowed on without him, was unsettling. The air of the city planet seemed charged with new pollutants, more random ionized particles, different smells.

He stepped off the ship's ramp and onto the hard landing pad deck with a shiver of dread. Even the Force was different; he was sure of it. Perhaps only subtly, so that anyone living here might not notice the gradual darkening. But enough that he, coming home after long absence, could practically taste the delicate taint on his tongue. It tasted of blood and dust.

Tahl was waiting for him. She took one look at his face and grasped his arm. "You need tea," she decided.

"My report," he grunted, pinching the bridge of his nose. Thirty seven hours in transit, and his head was throbbing.

"Is scheduled for tomorrow morning," she informed him blithely. "You're stuck with me until then. I wouldn't even bother going to your own quarters. The droids sealed them up. You're officially a homeless vagabond."

He nodded wearily, accepting the gentle taunt and the invitation and the warmth of her hand on his arm. He trudged behind her, only dimly aware of the once-familiar corridors and lifts, windows and colonnades. All was silent and still in the wee hours of night. And strangely… off balance.

"Come on," Tahl urged him in a gentle voice. "You're dead tired. Tea and rest."

He pushed the thought out of his mind and crossed over the threshold to her simple quarters, into warmth and welcome.

* * *

"Will you attend the funeral tonight?" Mace's face was darkened by a shadow. It might have been grief.

"Of course." He was home; he would again be woven into the texture of the Temple's life, threading his present moment into its broadening pattern. "I was sorry to hear of his death, though I did not know him well."

They crossed the soaring Hall of Inner Thresholds. Mace might have sighed. "The loss of any one of our number –particularly so young – is an occasion of regret," the Korun master admitted – privately, between themselves. "Mixo was a promising Knight."

"Did he have an apprentice?"

Mace shook his head. "No. Had he not been alone, he may have escaped. Therein lies a lesson. Two blades can often accomplish what one cannot."

Qui Gon cocked an eyebrow, and increased his stride. Mace Windu matched him with ease, ignoring the hint. "Indeed."

"It is good to have you home, my friend." The statement might have been warm, full of affection.

They stopped at the south tower turbolift. Qui Gon nodded, briefly clasped the other man's arm. "It is good to be home. Forgive me, Mace. I must make the Council report."

Mace's lips pressed together, veiling a smile. His glittering eyes kept their own secrets. "I'm headed that way myself," he said, dryly.

Qui Gon paused, fine lines appearing around his eyes as he squinted sideways at his childhood friend. "You…?"

Windu nodded. "I'm afraid so, you old rebel."

Qui Gon exhaled, straightened his spine. So it had finally happened. They had elevated Mace to the Council. The two Jedi masters stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the lift. "May the Force help us both," he smiled.

Mace's tiny snort may have been deeply amused.

* * *

The debriefing was interminable, but even restless eternities sometime come to an end. Qui Gon escaped unscathed, his year in captivity and the brilliant success of his last assignment dissolving any censure like wind-whipped smoke.

He needed food. And the first of many deep meditations. And sleep. But first, he had an appointment to keep. He had not forgotten his promise, nor his resolve.

Troon Palo greeted him in the initiates' common area.

"Yes, he's here," the hirsute clan master answered. "But, Qui Gon…. This may not be the best time to speak to him."

The tall man shifted. "He has been expecting me, for some time."

They wandered toward Troon's private office again. "Come in. Sit down."

Qui Gon believed in the direct approach. "What is it? Is the boy ill?"

Troon splayed his strong fingers over the table's polished surface and inhaled deeply. "Were you well acquainted with Mixo Asaro?"

"No. Why?"

"You should know that he asked the boy to be his Padawan, about a year ago now."

Qui Gon blinked. But of course there was nothing wrong with that. There was no prior claim, no rules governing such a situation. "I thought Asaro had no apprentice?"

Troon Palo pursed his purple lips and sighed. "Obi Wan turned him down. Three times, in the course of the next nine months. Asaro took it in good humor. I believe he intended to plead the Council's intervention when he returned from this last assignment."

They were silent for a long minute. Qui Gon felt a flicker of unease, released it the Force. "Why did he refuse Asaro's offer of apprenticeship?" he asked.

The clan master stood again. "Perhaps you should speak with him after all," he decided. "I would appreciate the help, master. Sometimes… I fell that I am out of my depths with the boy. He needs a master- he's too old for the dragon clan anymore. And too sober."

That didn't sound right. Qui Gon stood. "Yes. Let me talk to him."

* * *

Two and a half years had transformed youngling into youth. The boy was taller, a bit broader in the shoulder, the baby fat melting from his face to reveal what would be strong-cut features.. Qui Gon still dwarfed him. The Force announced his presence before he could speak.

"Master Jinn!" Surprise apparently drove away any thought of formalities.

He crossed the room, toward the low sleep mattress. "May I?"

The boy recovered his wits and his manners, bowing deeply. "Of course, master."

Perched on the bed's narrow edge, he was at eye level with the young Jedi. "Obi Wan," he began, I do not know whether you recall –"

"I remember," the boy interrupted, eyebrows quirking upward in a graceful unspoken apology for the interruption. "I was very young. And I am honored that you would come to speak with me personally. But I assure you, I understand, master. I …there is no expectation on my part."

Qui Gon tilted his head to one side. "Are you so certain why I am here, that you can answer me before I ask anything?"

Obi Wan blushed violently. "Forgive me, master." His interest was absorbed by his boots, or perhaps some detail of the bland flooring.

The Jedi master leaned back a trifle, considering. What had he expected, more prattling about the local customs on Vetruvia? A sly jest? "Master Palo tells me you are burdened," he said. "I want you to tell me why."

The boy's gaze came up to meet his, swift as a Makashi parry, blue as a saber blade. _Defense_ was written in his eyes, surefooted and confident. This was an experienced duelist, not one easily intimidated. "Master Troon must be mistaken. I'm sorry if I gave him cause for concern."

Qui Gon's eyebrows rose. Disengage.

A half-smile, bland and evasive. "Clan masters are known to _brood_ over the chicks, " Obi Wan said. Feint. Very smooth, flawless.

"Chicks are known to wander away and get lost." Strike.

"Jedi masters are known to wander away and get lost, as well. Sometimes for years." _Counterstrike. _

"That depends on your point of view, does it not?" A sloppy block; the attack had been skilled, understated, deadly. Qui Gon's smile was taut.

Blue gaze unwavering. "Master Troon's point of view or mine?" Bind.

The Force sang with possibility. It filled Qui Gon's mind, drowned out the separate parts of this dance. Here was one who could learn _everything._ "I'm more interested in yours, young one." Reverse grip; disengage; lunge.

The boy blinked, losing his footing. A line appeared between his eyebrows, making him look twenty years older. "Why?" A mistake, leaving him open.

"I think you already know why." A hit, hard and direct.

Obi Wan's mouth narrowed to a very displeased line. He hid his pain well, far too well for someone his age. "Oh." The frown deepened. He swallowed.

"Well?" Qui Gon waited, confident of victory.

The boy closed his eyes briefly, and then fixed Qui Gon with his burning gaze one last time. "Mixo Asaro is dead because of me," he stated, bitterly.

The duel ended, but it was Qui Gon who ended up disarmed.

* * *

The dining hall seemed noisier, more cramped. Suffocating. Qui Gon hardly touched his food. Obi Wan merely entertained the contents of his plate with polite conversation, letting them cool into tepid staleness without so much as stirring a utensil in their depths.

"I had that vision three times," the boy said, dully. "I should have understood what it meant. Had I not refused his offer - had I been with him - I'm sure I coudl have anticipated the ambush. He woudl have lived. His death is my fault, don't you see that?"

"No, I'm afarid I don't."

Obi Wan fixed his cold food with a fulminating look and fell silent.

They weren't making much progress, beyond attracting the attention of other diners. Jedi were not overt gossip-mongerers, but Qui Gon could read the subtle clues.

He pushed their uneaten portions at the nearest serving droid and stood. "Come with me," he ordered.

The young Jedi glanced up at him, uncertain. "I… isn't it…I think I should be with the other initiates, Master Jinn."

"I would like you to accompany me," the tall master told him. "Does that idea offend you?"

Swift _defense_ flashed in those eyes again. The boy was full of untamed fire. Some would say, _anger. _ Qui Gon saw the fleet white sun upon surging waves, the halo of a newborn star. There were few who would appreciate the potential; fewer still who could channel and mold it. Mixo Asaro had not been one of these, he felt sure.

"It would not be fitting for me to attend… in such a manner," Obi Wan managed. The fire transmuted to a pleading softness, a depth inviting understanding. Asking openly for excuse.

Qui Gon nodded toward the exit. "Nonetheless, you will be coming with me," he insisted, testing the limits of the boy's defiance.

"Why?"

The tall man merely turned and headed for the exit. There was a pause of three heartbeats before he heard the soft tread of Obi Wan's boots behind him, a muffled cadence echoing his own firm footfalls. They crossed the external corridor, a shallow annex hall, and then exited onto a balcony, one overlooking the city. Qui Gon gripped the balustrade and waited until a second pair of hands appeared beside his own. He kept his gaze forward, distant, roving over the untidy sprawl of the megalopolis.

"Obi Wan," he said, when he was certain of his audience's undivided attention. "I would like to consider you for apprenticeship."

The boy's hands tightened about the railing, until his knuckles stood out white against already pale skin. "I know," he said thickly. "But, master.."

"Yes?" Lurid holoboards flashed stridently in a distant sector; air speeders' headlamps and running lights beaded the night sky like dewdrops on an invisible web.

"You shouldn't," the young Jedi declared, in a voice edged with that same rippling fire that had manifested earlier. The Force rose with his conviction, a tide pulled by a waxing young moon.

"Because of Mixo Asaro," Qui Gon stated, neutrally. "Listen to me, Obi Wan, and listen well." He turned at last, until he had the boy fixed squarely in his unrelenting gaze. "You are not wise enough to understand the ways of the Force, or the causes of Knight Asaro's death. You are presumptuous to claim responsibility for yourself when you have nothing but your own limited perspective as basis for judgment."

The words doused some of the fire; a wet gleam appeared in its place. But when the young Jedi replied, his voice was low and steady. "Then I am twice unworthy."

Qui Gon shook his head. "That is not yours to decide, either."

They stood, locked in a silent struggle while the polluted city breeze ruffled hair and cloak hems. There was already the bitterness of ash drifting in the air, a precursor of the funerary pyre to come.

"Let us go now," the tall man sighed, and led the way back indoors, his reluctant charge trailing his steps, a shadow shackled unwillingly to its original.

* * *

"We are luminous beings; not this gross matter."

A Jedi funeral was a simple affair. Qui Gon knew the entire ceremony by heart – there were very few words to it, after all, and in his decades of service, he had attended far, far too many such rites.

Mixo Asaro's body was rendered back to ash and dancing fire; the mute stuff out of which the scintillating stras and the lowliest of space slugs was formed, and the secret fire which quickened all these things to life, however fleeting. Unfettered, that which had been Mixo Asaro, Jedi Knight, was now one with the universal Force.

The Jedi in the wide chamber, tier upon tier of them, elders, masters, knights, apprentices, younglings, had their heads covered. Death was a reminder of anonymity, of the unimportance of self. And a cowl served to hide any stray tears. Attachment was something that could be overcome with time and training; its unseemly public display was not acceptable at any age.

Obi Wan stood rigidly before him as silence took the room, as the corpse crumbled beneath the caressing fire. The pyre was heavily scented, the upper windows thrown wide. Smoke curled, mesmerizing, to the blackened rafters and then out into the heavens.

"There is no death. There is the Force."

The ceremony was ended. Some left; others remained. The shoulders beneath Qui Gon's hands trembled. He closed his fingers about them tightly, forbidding escape. More people left, trickling out of the chamber in twos and threes. The fires cooled. Still they stood. Obi Wan fidgeted, but Qui Gon held him steady.

At last only they and Yoda remained.

The gimer stick clumped heavily on rough hewn flagstones. Yoda peered up into the young Jedi's face, beneath the obscuring shadow of his hood.

"Grieve not for those who have become one with the Force," he advised, gently.

Obi Wan nodded, mutely.

The ancient master's gimlet eyes slid upward to Qui Gon's face, inquiring. "Linger here, do you, Master Jinn. Need company, the dead do not."

His hands moved downwards, to lightly grasp the boy's forearms beneath the heavy folds of brown robe. "But the living do."

Yoda grunted at him, the dismissive snort and the pert twitch of his ears as he turned away conveying a paradoxical approval. The gimer stick's clacking faded away.

They stood, and the ash cooled. Heavy night air seeped down through the open windows. "Master?"

"Hm?"

Obi Wan cleared his throat with difficulty. His voice was hoarse, but the words crystal-cut, precise. "When will we be leaving?"

Qui Gon exhaled slowly, hands still softly pinning the youth in place. "That depends on you. Everyone else has already moved on. But I sense that you have not."

The boy tensed a little, but stood straight and unwavering.

"Even guilt is a form of attachment, young one. You must move past it." He tugged the hood down, turned the boy around, gentle but firm.

Shame rose into the boy's tear-stained cheeks, but his eyes and the deep crease between his brows bespoke _anger,_ too. Or pain. Uncertainty.

Qui Gon probed within the depths of that gaze, seeking the shatterpoint. But there was none apparent. Obi Wan was as obstinate in his self-condemnation as any Jedi put to the trial of spirit. He stood on _principle, _ even against himself. "You must move on," he repeated.

The boy's head dipped. "Yes, master," he answered. "I will. I'll ..address this."

Something in Qui Gon's gut twisted a little, but it was enough for now. He had made progress, and the hour was late. "I'll walk you back to your quarters."

He did, and when they arrived, he was loathe to part ways. But he did.

* * *

Dooku was in the observation balcony, watching the older initiates' sparring session. His manifest surprise at meeting Qui Gon there was exceeded only by the latter's shock at encountering his former master condescending to observe what he must consider mere playful antics.

"There is some talent among these younglings," Dooku observed, bypassing the formality of a greeting or any idle conversation. "Squandered, I fear, by hidebound teaching practices. But, nonetheless. It is there."

Qui Gon leaned over the railing, discreetly, lest any of the subjects of his scrutiny perceive his presence and succumb to distraction. "Cin has done a wonderful job with them," he argued. "Customs change over time."

Dooku's aristocratic profile remained impassive, but a flare of annoyance crested in the Force and then vanished, serpentine in its graceful disappearance. Barely a ripple was left in its wake. "Perhaps," the silver-haired man replied.

They watched the next duel with affected indifference. "Ah. Makashi, at last," Dooku smiled thinly, a tightening of the lips signifying only critical interest.

"Are you looking for another Padawan, master?" Qui Gon dared to venture.

One dark eyebrow twitched upward sardonically. "But corrupting the Order's youth is more in your line, Qui Gon," he said, the words scoring deep across half-healed scars, an adder's strike worthy of a Makashi master-duelist.

Qui Gon's hands clenched the railing, and his leonine face blanched. "As you say, my master." He did not make eye contact.

Dooku feigned apology. "Pay no heed, my old Padawan," he smiled, without warmth. "I was intrigued by one of these boys… I caught him practicing alone in here before the class began. I've never seen a level four velocity performed with such… fire. But it would appear I overestimated his abilities." He nodded curtly to the dojo floor, where one of the contestants had been easily felled by his opponent.

Dooku shrugged and turned without a good-bye.

Part of Qui Gon was relieved to see him go. The other part was concerned. The swordsmaster had called for a rematch; and now the loser of the previous round had transformed. Qui Gon leaned over the railing, heedless of whether he were spotted. Dooku had not overestimated the boy at all.

Fire was the right word.

In three brutal minutes, the match was over. The dojo was hushed. Cin Drallig extended an arm toward the shower rooms, uttered a sharp command. The victor limped away, head hanging low but shoulders tense with battle-fury, with bright solar flares of untamed _emotion._

Qui Gon abandoned his post and made a beeline for the changing rooms.

* * *

"Where did you learn to fight like that?" he demanded of the boy.

Obi Wan spun about, caught in the act of stripping off his tunic. "Master Jinn!"

"And why," Qui Gon asked, voice dropping to a low growl, "Are you covered in welts and burns?"

Silence. "My guard still needs work," Obi Wan responded tartly. "As you can _see." _ He flung the soiled garment away. It hit the laundry receptacle with a muffled _thwap._

Qui Gon towered over him, arms crossed. "That looks more like the results of private dueling. Who is the other?"

Obi Wan's expression was mutinous. He took a deep breath. "With respect, master, the folly is all mine. I will not implicate anyone else." He turned his back, ostensibly to search for a clean tunic in the locker behind him.

"Obi Wan."

The whipcrack tone brought him up short. He turned around.

"Do not offer me any more disrespect," the tall man warned, calmly. "It is unbecoming and will not stall this conversation."

Chest heaving, the boy stared up at him. Qui Gon leaned in, poked gently at a long searing burn down the young Jedi's side and ribs. Obi Wan hissed. "How long have you and …what's his name? Chun? been at this?"

A muscle leapt along the boy's jaw, which was clamped shut.

"I know it is Chun because you once told me you wished to, ah, _inspire_ him," the Jedi master continued. "Now answer my question."

The fire in Obi Wan's eyes matched his fighting style. But disobedience was unthinkable. Qui Gon was a _master_ of the Order. The boy scowled, fought down his temper, and replied stonily. "Two and a half years."

"That is coming to an end today," Qui Gon informed him.

A brief pause. Then, "Yes,master, it is."

He narrowed his eyes at the boy, wondering.

"May I please get dressed now?"

Qui Gon sighed, and gave his permission with a curt nod. On the way out, he felt that strange twist in his gut again. He should speak to Yoda immediately. Too much time had been wasted already.

* * *

Master Yoda snorted and waved a claw at him in vexation. "Not your concern is the boy. Pester me not with your question, Qui Gon."

"If he is not my concern, then whose? He has been engaging in private saber contests with a rival for more than two years; he blames himself for Asaro's death, by some twisted logic which nobody has bothered to correct; and he's been under the care of the _mind healers_ for the past year because of acute insomnia related to visions? Who _is_ concerned for this boy, master?"

The ancient Jedi's thunderous expression might have silenced a krayt dragon during mating season. "Confidential are those records."

"I have friends who care for truth more than stale protocol."

"Accomplice, Tahl is to you," the diminutive master harrumphed.

Qui Gon shifted impatiently. "This boy needs more direct guidance. And he needs it now. Are you going to let a talent like that waste away or destroy itself?"

"Accuse the Order of neglect, do you?"

Qui Gon stood, sensing that the interview had ended before it began. "I shall not pester you any further," he said sourly, making his deep bow.

Yoda ignored the deferential gesture. "Disappoint me, you do, Qui Gon. Action, you used to take. Now, whine and complain do you."

He turned and made for the door, before he said something regrettable to the Grand Master of the entire Order.

"Qui Gon."

The whiplash tone brought him up short. He turned.

"May the Force be with you," Yoda grumbled, a reluctant benediction shining in his green-gold eyes.

Qui Gon bowed again, confused, and then stormed away.

* * *

"Are you actually _brooding?"_ Tahl inquired.

"No."

"Contemplating an act of defiance, then," she concluded. "I'm not involved this time." There was the swish of a door closing. The lights dimmed, deepening the shadows behind his closed eyelids.

"An act of compassion," he corrected her.

Tahl's finger descended over his lips. "I'm not involved. You can introduce me to your pathetic life form after the fact."

He smiled against the gentle pressure over his mouth. "You'll like him," he told her, though the words came out muffled.

"Hush."

* * *

The Council kept him waiting more than half the day. When he finally received his summons to the chamber atop the southern spire, the sun was eagerly pursuing its eastward journey, sinking toward Coruscant's crenellated horizon.

Mace looked smug, sitting directly beside Yoda. But focus determines reality, and Qui Gon was not here to observe his old friend's graceful assumption of authority and responsibility. He was here to do that himself.

"I seek the Council's approval for an apprenticeship," he declared, without preamble. More than one pair of eyebrows lifted. Qui Gon braced himself for the customary battle of wills, confident of success. He _would_ prevail.

"Whom?" Mace asked, terse as ever.

Qui Gon glanced round the solemn assembly of masters. "Obi Wan Kenobi, initiate in the dragon clan," he said simply. "He is not spoken for."

Mace and Yoda exchanged a veiled look. The Korun Jedi steepled his fingers and gazed at Qui Gon over their tips, dark eyes hooded. "Kenobi is no longer in the Temple," he stated neutrally.

"What?"

There was a hesitance, the merest flutter of disturbance in the Force. The Councilors stirred as one.

"He spoke with the Council first thing this morning. The boy renounced any further claim to education here, and requested an Agri-Corps assignment."

"And you agreed?" The scalding words boiled over before he could restrain himself. Qui Gon raked his sharp gaze over the circle of _fools_ sitting so complacently before him. "The boy is destined to be a Knight!"

"Our own counsel we will keep, in such matters," Yoda snapped.

"How can the Council permit such _folly?"_ Qui Gon almost roared.

"Permit you to speak, we do. Accustomed to folly are we," Yoda retorted, his displeasure as burning as a saber cut.

Qui Gon stepped back, but his eyes blazed. "Where is the boy now? Has he left yet? What is his transport?"

"Your concern it is _not,_ Qui Gon Jinn."

"That boy is my Padawan."

Yoda slammed his stick into the marble floor. "Refused to take a learner you did. Supported you in this, the Council did. Silent, you _will _ be." The command nearly knocked Qui Gon over. He sank onto one knee in the center of the inlaid floor.

"Master," he begged, "Please tell me. I would have taken him long before now. Years ago. Duty prevented me. I humble myself before you; I was wrong. I respectfully request to take the boy as my Padawan Learner."

Yoda snorted. "Against Council advice?"

"This is the will of the Force!" Qui Gon's head came up. "I _will _ do what I must. Against the wishes of the Council if need be."

"_Defiance!" _Yoda snarled. "Your downfall will it be."

"Then so be it," Qui Gon answered, wrestling himself under control. "That boy needs guidance. He needs a teacher. And that is my duty now, whether you want it or not, whether I want it or not."

Yoda released a long grumbling sigh full of disgust and resignation. "_Monument_, is his transport. Leaves in twenty minutes. Make haste you must. Break traffic laws."

Qui Gon rose and was out the door before another breath could be drawn. What he did not see, in his headlong rush for the district spaceport, was the slow, sly smile which spread across the ancient master's face, or the satisfied, knowing light that filled his limpid green-gold eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Lineage**

* * *

**Part 3: The Monument**

The ship was…disgusting. Its rusted access panels hung limply, spilling circuits and hoses – the bones and reeking innards of a carrion beast. Huge …_slugs…_ wormed their way up the far boarding ramp. Something in his memory, a mere name attached to a bloodless holographic image, whispered to him that these were Hutts, from Nal Hutta.

Obi Wan hoisted the light satchel that held all his worldly possessions – two changes of clothing and a datapad with some of his most recent academic assignments still loaded in the reader – and threaded his way across the crowded hangar deck in a daze. The Force nudged him away from the Hutts, toward the near boarding ramp, where Arconans and humans milled. He wasn't used to the spaceport, to the noise and stink, to the rude phrases bandied about by the ground mechanics. He had learned six new obscenities already, and he wasn't even off Coruscant yet.

Somebody stopped him. "Boarding pass."

He presented the datacard, craned his head to see over the uniformed woman's shoulder. Three shovel-headed Arconans were pushing a hoverpalette up the ramp. Massive cargo crates were strapped to the floating platform.

"Cabin 66, port side," the spaceport official told him. "_Hey."_

He blinked, bringing her tired face back into focus. "Thank you," he murmured, starting to bow and then remembering that this was not a master or knight at the Temple. He settled for a polite nod. The woman stared at him, ambled away shaking her head.

He could not shake the sensation that he, too, was cargo. He trod up the open ramp slowly, into the ship's bowels, not wishing to do this. His heart ached for home, and he bit his lip hard, reeling unruly imagination back to the present moment. Cabin 66. Where might that be? He looked up at the rusted and stained bulkheads, the dimly lit corridor proceeding into the hulk like an endless gullet. The placards by doorways were all in Huttese, which he did not read well at all. He set off down the narrow tunnel, determined to find another passenger of whom to ask directions.

As fate would have it, he ran into a Hutt.

"This is _our_ side of the ship," the thing slurred at him. A sharp scent, acrid and sweet, wafted on the Hutt's breath. He felt he should be able to recognize it… alcohol? He had never really _smelled_ drunkenness before, particularly not on such an obscenely shapeless person. The slug's nostrils flared, and its bulbous eyes slitted. The Force roared in Obi Wan's ears, in a way it never had before. What did that mean? Was that… _menace? _ Bruck Chun's taunts paled to insignificant jibes compared to this. He took a step backward, reflexively, shaking his head. How did one dispel that feeling? Did it go away of its own accord? Did he have to _do_ something? Breathe?

"My apologies," he said, jerking his head in the direction he had come. "I'll be more careful." A Jedi tried diplomacy first.

"You'll be _dead,"_ the Hutt hollered, its oily voice cracking on the last word.

"You want to go away and leave me alone," he asserted, pressing on the thing's mind.

Nothing happened. The slug advanced. Obi Wan retreated, unafraid. He could easily outrun a _slug. _He could easily _wallop_ a slug in hand-to-hand combat, if it came to that. Even without a lightsaber.

What he hadn't anticipated were the two hulking Whiphids that jumped him from behind.

* * *

"Can you hear me, young one?"

"Mmmph-nnngh." What was Qui Gon Jinn doing here? He had left the Temple… he distinctly recalled descending the stairs of the grand ceremonial entrance, casting one last look at the statues which stood sentinel at the mighty pyramid's base. Why was he back there, when he had exiled himself, and done a fine job of it too? He'd got as far as the spaceport without picking a fight. Without causing any other being harm.

"Hold still, Obi Wan. I need you to stay calm."

He slatted his eyes open and watched the triple and quadruple silhouettes of the Jedi master waver and blur in the piercing overhead light. He was burning hot, and he hurt. Everywhere. Had Bruck beaten him that badly? It didn't seem possible. "Master… master, I didn't start it. I – he – I stopped. I didn't challenge him." The whole Temple was lurching beneath him. He had read about earthquakes on Vetruvia once. They celebrated seismic events there with _fermis, _ lots of it. They drank lots of _fermis_ on Vetruvia, for all sorts of reasons. Enough to make a person sick, he imagined. And then it wasn't imaginary, it was quite real.

He managed to roll over before vomiting. Bitter liquid spattered on the dingy white flooring. Cracked, too. Hanging halfway over the side of a medical cot, he realized that he was _not_ in the Temple. The Temple would never be so uncivilized. There were _stains_ on the floor. Dark ones. His stomach heaved again, and he forgot about the filth for a moment. And then strong hands were levering him onto his back, pressing against his forehead and chest. It was sweltering here, oppressive. He was shaking and sticky with sweat. At least, he hoped it was sweat.

"Obi Wan. Focus on my voice. Do you understand? Can you hear me?"

His voice made a sound for him, but it wasn't the one he intended. Golden light trickled, particulate, then blossomed, expanded into fretted tracery, a fine veil of luminescence that settled over his pain like cool salve, like an ethereal blanket. The Force… he grasped at it, burrowed into it, suckled at its breast. His limbs stopped shaking so hard.

"Why were you fighting?" Master Jinn's voice inquired, gentle but urgent. "Tell me. Obi Wan. Don't sleep yet. What were you doing?"

He gripped awareness double-handed, like a saber's hilt. Speech was difficult, an advanced kata. Focus. He found his tongue, drew in breath. Qui Gon Jinn. That was a good memory, something that had happened before… everything else. He smiled. "….Inspirational," he whispered, pleased that the syllables came out so clearly.

That is when Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn unintentionally taught him his seventh new obscenity of the day. The tall man was chuckling as he ground out the unfamiliar expression. Obi Wan was too exhausted to ask what it meant.

After that, it was far too difficult to stay awake, so he didn't.

* * *

He was more comfortable when he woke again. And strangely detached from the proceedings. Aware of his body, but not quite present in it, he observed languidly that there were machines all around him, some of them actually attached to his arms and torso by wires, or tubes. Lights blinked, data monitors flashed information across displays. Frowning, he wondered whether he had been melded into the filthy ship's bowels, grafted into its circuitry.

The ensuing jolt of horror made something bleep, and people came running. Qui Gon Jinn was one of them.

"Where?" he asked, working at the difficult act of speech as a sculptor frets over his evolving masterpiece.

The Jedi master leaned in close, touching his face. "On board the _Monument," _the tall man told him. "You've had a dangerous fever. Do you remember fighting with the Whiphids on the Hutt side of the ship?"

Fever. Whiphids. The Monument. The disparate names bleared slowly together, but they tangled with others, too: Miso Asaro, Coruscant, Cabin 66. He frowned over the puzzle, calling on the sluggish Force for help. Eventually the pieces coalesced into memory. "Oh," he rasped. "Yes."

A female voice joined them, attached to red hair and an unfocused splotch of pale skin below. "You nearly killed the pair of them, and nearly got killed yourself. Jemba's fit to be tied. Nobody has ever laid into his security forces like that before. That'll teach 'em a lesson."

This person was fierce, and happy about the Whiphids' injuries. She was like Bruck Chun, ready to exact payment from a rival. "Anger," he tried to tell her, "…not… you shouldn't."

"What's he saying?"

"Clat'ha. This isn't the time." Qui Gon's voice moved away, towing the blurry red-haired woman with it. Soon she was gone. Others replaced her. Qui Gon returned, splayed the fingers of one hand over his chest. Obi Wan wondered where his clothing had got to… and why he was compounded with the machines, why his thoughts drifted weightlessly above his slack limbs, why the Force was so slippery here, like a slime-coated bottom-dwelling fish, the kind that ate algae in the artificial river at home.

"You aren't used to this," Qui Gon assured him. "They do things very differently in a medbay on a ship – not like the Healers in the Temple."

"I…master, please. Are the Whiphids hurt?"

Qui Gon's face came a bit closer. He could almost hold it in focus. "Yes," the tall Jedi sighed. "Badly. Both of them have broken spines. You threw them into the support strut for that corridor."

He felt the decks lurch beneath them again, though Qui Gon Jinn gave no sign of having felt it. Obi Wan's hand came up to grasp at the tall Jedi's robe. He clenched his fingers in the familiar cloth. Anchor. Shield. "Will they die?"

"They might."

He was going to be sick again. he closed his eyes, scrabbling for the Force. It slipped through his grasp, mockingly. Mixo Asaro. Whiphids. Ashes drifted in the night breeze, ascending toward the stars.

"They were trying to kill you, Obi Wan. An act of self-defense is justified. And you are young – your control is not perfect."

He shook his head. _Not perfect._ The understatement tasted of bile.

"We will talk more later. You need to rest."

He didn't want to rest, not now, but it was impossible to resist the clinging embrace of slumber, to ignore the master's gentle Force compulsion. He drifted away again.

* * *

When he woke the third time, he thought he must certainly back in the Temple. The machines and wires and tubes were gone, and the lights were mercifully dim. He lifted his head a centimeter, from where it was nestled in a firm pillow, and uncurled. He found himself hunched into a ball amidst a heavy pile of blankets. His stomach was achingly hollow, and every inch of his body stiff and sore. But not throbbing. The Force was better here, too, no longer viscous, clotted with lethargy.

The room was small – a closet, really, with only a bed and a chair in it, and a narrow shelf built into the stained wall.

Oh. Perhaps he was not home. But that was good. He had exiled himself, and he must hold firm in his resolution. There was no place in the Temple or the Order for a Jedi who killed people. Other Jedi, Whiphids. Who fought with anger for trivial cause. Who could not harness the terrifying parade of nightmares that sometimes haunted his nights. For someone who was so pathetically off course and lost that he could not even locate Cabin 66 without provoking a violent confrontation.

A thought. _This_ was Cabin 66. So he had found it, in the end. From a certain point of view. He stood up shakily and found his clothes folded neatly on the shelf. He fumbled his way into them. The white cloth looked sickly in the dull emergency lighting. He fastened the belt and rubbed idly at his grumbling belly. Food would be good. He _did _feel better, for what it was worth.

The door slid open, and there in the frame stood Qui Gon Jinn, bearing a tray of food. He entered the room wordlessly, waved the door shut behind him, and set the plastoid tray upon the shelf. Obi Wan watched him silently as he poured something into a cheap disposable bowl.

"Here," the Jedi master said, handing the bowlful of thin soup to him. "Eat. You need your strength. We're near Bandomeer's sector already, and we need to resolve this dispute before we land."

Obi Wan sank down on the edge of the single bunk, crossed his legs beneath him, lit into the broth with enthusiasm. It tasted of salt, and something fishy, but he cared little what it was. The hot liquid soothed the twisting beneath his ribs, soothed his parched throat. Qui Gon Jinn watched him eat, sitting opposite in the single chair.

"What dispute?" Obi Wan asked, when the bowl was empty.

Qui Gon rose and refilled it. "The Hutts hate the Arconans and their friends on this side of the ship. And are hated in their turn. Your tussle with the Whiphid security on their side was interpreted as an act of aggression. Jemba – the Hutt leader here – has demanded that the captain of the _Monument_ throw you in the brig for the remainder of the journey, and turn you over to the Offworld corporate security force on Bandomeer."

Obi Wan held the steaming bowl in two hands. "Offworld?"

"A corrupt mining company. They are in competition with the Arconan Mineral Harvest people for control of the planet's resources. Under Trade Federation internal law, assault against a security patrol officer is punishable under corporation rules, under certain conditions."

The young Jedi scowled. "What conditions?"

Qui Gon tapped the bowl. "Eat," he commanded. "The Captain is a coward, but more afraid of me than Jemba. I've moved you here to prevent any unfortunate complications."

Obi Wan looked up at the tall mans' face, at its grooves and laugh lines and crooked nose, and high sloping forehead. In the grey eyes shone a fierce protective light, the flame surmounted by wings, sheltering its own. A promise of harbor and counsel and great compassion. He felt his resolve weaken, quavering in the warmth of that unspoken offer. His fingers wrapped tighter about the bowl. "..Thank you," was all he permitted himself to say. He glanced at the untidy bed, wondered how long the Jedi had been caring for him like a sick and needy infant. Heat rose into his face and he bowed his head, busying himself with the task of eating.

"After you have finished a third helping," Qui Gon smiled, "I will teach you how to play sabaac."

"What about the captain, and Jemba, and the dispute?"

"Keep your mind in the present moment, Obi Wan."

The phrase rang true, as though he had heard it a thousand times before.

* * *

The ships' internal lights were dimmed for the artificial night cycle. Obi Wan did not know how to object when his companion stretched himself out on the cabin's hard floor, so he crawled back into the nest of blankets on the narrow bunk. Weariness dragged him down toward slumber with alarming speed. But there was an unanswered question niggling at the back of his overburdened mind.

"Master Jinn?'

"Yes."

"Why are _you_ on this ship?"

"I have a mission here."

"On Bandomeer, you mean? With …the Agri-Corps?"

"So it would seem."

"A diplomatic mission?" Obi Wan was curious, confused.

"I expect difficult negotiations ahead."

Obi Wan brooded over this for a moment. "Master," he said again. "After the ship lands… when we reach Bandomeer, won't the Hutts still be angry? I don't know what I should do. I've never met people like them before."

The Jedi master released a quiet breath. "No," he agreed. "You haven't. You will rely on the Force to guide you, Obi Wan. Though you have left the Temple, the Force will always be with you."

"Yes." It was; he could feel it around him, within him. But … he swallowed.

Qui Gon Jinn waited.

Obi Wan bit his lip and rolled over. He would not permit himself to ask for help and protection. He had chosen to be alone, because that was all he deserved. The Force would have to be enough for him.

He fell asleep before he could hear the master's gentle sigh of frustration.

* * *

He dreamt of a sickening ocean of _fermis, _ which tasted like muja fruit juice, and of Hutts desecrating Mixo Asaro's funeral pyre. He could not stop them, because he was drowning in the sticky-sweet nectar, and when he called for help, it was a spindly medical droid that rushed to his aid, armed with a tangle of wires and tubing. He threw it against a wall, and it shattered into glinting components, bits and pieces rolling and bouncing underfoot, bobbing in the choppy waves, the churning sea of _fermis.._

The dream changed to vision, trenchant clarity, Force-borne certainty.

He woke screaming, and Qui Gon Jinn woke, too, roused by the alarm.

"What is it?" the tall man barked, already on his feet, one hand curled powerfully about his saber hilt, his broad frame coiled as though to spring.

Mortification flooded through him, bloomed hot on his cheeks. Obi Wan stifled his panting, balled his fists until he had control. "I am deeply sorry to disturb you, master. I – it was only – I had a vision." And now he had knowledge, too. His eyes stung.

"Tell me," the Jedi master prompted.

There was no point in hiding it. He closed his eyes briefly, replacing one darkness with another. "The Whiphids are dead," he said flatly. "I felt it happen." He felt the moment when he became a murderer three times over, multiplying his mistake until it blotted out the stars, almost smothered the Force itself.

In the faint glow of the therm regulator in the corner, he could make out Qui Gon's outline. The Jedi knelt in meditation posture for a long minute. Obi Wan counted his breaths, slowing them with a Yamalsa calming technique the mind healers in the Temple had taught him. His pulse steadied to a slow rhythm.

"You are right," the Jedi master murmured sadly. "Jemba pulled their life support."

A gasp slipped out past his guard, despite his best effort. "He-? How _could _ he do that? They might have lived!"

"I suspected that he might do this, but I was not certain."

Obi Wan's voice rose with his anger. "Why didn't you stop him, then?"

But the Jedi master was stoically indifferent to his passion. "My interference would only have provoked greater suffering. Jemba would not hesitate to take vengeance on the Arconans. I hoped his malice would not extend so far as this."

"Jemba is a vile _worm!"_ Obi Wan cried out. "I've never met such evil people anywhere!"

"And have you been so many places, young one?" Qui Gon's smile was bittersweet.

Misery formed a tight knot in his belly. He hung his head. "No, master."

Silence. Obi Wan started when the Jedi master's weight settled on the edge of the cot. He drew his knees up to his chest and settled his forehead against them, determined not to lean into Qui Gon's solid and reassuring form beside him. He had to stand on his own against the evil around him; else how could he stand against the evil within? The minutes dragged by, offering no guidance, no comfort, only weariness in the aftermath of the vision. If he eventually slumped sideways to rest in the crook of an arm wrapped with patient strength about his shoulders, he did not remember it.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Master Jedi, but given the change in circumstance, I think-"

"I'm sorry," Qui Gon cut the captain's flustered pleading short. "That is inadvisable. I will not permit it."

"There has been a crime committed aboard this vessel!" the portly man spluttered. "Trade Federation law requires that I take action to apprehend and incarcerate the responsible party!"

Qui Gon's full height was impressive, and he used it to best advantage. He towered over the captain, glowering. "The boy is under the sole jurisdiction of the Order and the Galactic Senate. You will not lay a hand on him."

There was a silence in which the Force sparked with outrage, with spiraling fear.

"Offworld will not be so easily intimidated, master Jedi," the officer snarled. The door hissed shut in Qui Gon's face.

Obi Wan, watching the exchange from across the small cabin's width, pressed his mouth into a thin line. "We cannot delay indefinitely," he pointed out. "I will have to speak to their authorities eventually. I am ready, master."

The tall Jedi cocked an eyebrow at him. "Not for Offworld, you're not. Be guided by me. These people are not seeking justice but retribution. They would like to make an example of you, to the Arconans and to any others who may follow. To cooperate with their wishes is to condone bullying. Do you understand?"

A novel perspective, but plausible, in some sick and twisted way. Obi Wan sighed and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Is the whole galaxy like this?" Because if it were, he had drunk his fill of it already, not four days from home. There had been a time when he dreamed of righting wrongs, forging peace from discord, defending the bastions of the innocent. But he had proved himself unworthy of that path, and could only serve by effacing his own noxious influence. Yet even that would not be enough to erase a single speck of the evil that would remain behind. His very extinction would accomplish nothing, pose no obstacle to the overwhelming tides of wickedness. He ground his teeth in frustration. "There must be something we can _do!"_ he protested.

"We shall be patient," Qui Gon decided, in a tone that brooked no opposition.

They did not have to wait long.

* * *

The decks juddered and then tilted beneath them, the _Monument_ slewing idly onto its side like a whaladon frolicking in some wave-capped sea. The grav generator kept everything in its proper place, of course; but there was a small lapse as they lost momentum, a sense of shifting verticality nudging at their kinetic awareness/

Qui Gon Jinn's head came up, grey eyes seeming to pierce through the bulkheads, questing. Obi Wan felt the lancing disturbance in the Force, too, but could not pinpoint it. He watched the frown slowly harden the tall man's features, and stood when he stood.

"Sabotage," Qui Gon said quietly. "Jemba has found a way to make his point more emphatic."

"Are we still in hyperspace?"

The tall Jedi shook his head. "No; I would wager we are near an Offworld-controlled system. Emergency aid will come in the form of allies for the Hutt side of this dispute. I sense a conspiracy in the making."

"They can't hold this entire ship hostage!" It was outrageous; and beyond impertinent. After all, there was a _Jedi master_ on board the captive vessel. The leaders of the corrupt mining corporation must be brazen indeed to attempt treachery right under his nose. "What do they hope to gain?"

Instead of answering, the Jedi master placed two hands on his shoulders. "Obi Wan," he said. "I want you to make yourself scarce."

"Hide?" he blinked several times. Confusion swiftly yielded to indignant protestation. "I'm not afraid of those star-forsaken Hutts, or their friends. I don't need to _hide."_

"Yes, you do." The pressure on his shoulders tightened, hard fingers digging in, pressing painfully against muscle and bone, commanding attention "And shield yourself in the Force, as well. Do you understand?"

"But –"

"Do as I say," Qui Gon ordered, his voice compelling and pleading at once. "You must trust me in this. I'll explain later."

That was fair enough, and he knew his place. He nodded, swallowing down his initial surge of reluctance. . "Yes, Master Jinn. I'll disappear."

"Good." The hiss of their cabin door opening, a gentle swish of cloak against the smooth doorframe, and the Jedi master had gone.

Obi Wan unclenched his fists and peered speculatively at the ceiling panels.

* * *

Belly-down inside the ventilation shaft – which was dusty enough to suggest that nary a maintenance bot had been sent through it in all the _Monument's_ long years of service - Obi Wan had a fine view of the scene unfolding in the forward officer's lounge. He lay barely breathing, wrapped in Light as though he were still small, playing innocently at hide-and-seek with his crechemates in the Temple. Master Jinn had told him to disappear, and he had; but no prohibition had been issued against eavesdropping.

Besides, this whole confrontation was his fault, and therefore his concern.

On one side were the flame haired woman called Clat-Ha – a director of the Mineral Harvest company, as he understood – and several Arconans, clustered together in one corner. With them stood Qui Gon Jinn, placid and silent. Across the large room, barely visible through the grille's rectangle, was a group of Hutts and their attendant Whiphid guards. These he guessed might be Jemba and his underlings. But his attention was riveted by the strange figure standing in the center of the space.

The man was a young human, tall and straight with raven hair flowing to his shoulders. He was clad in expensive velveteens, like the Senators in the Legislative building, and he stood with the self-assurance of any Jedi. But around him, rippling subtly in the Force, almost draped over him like a mantle of shadow, there was a … _disturbance._ ObI Wan was fascinated and repelled. This man was truly like nothing he had ever encountered. A crawling sensation began at the nape of his neck and spread inexorably down his spine, eventually twisting in his gut. He shivered.

"It's simple," this person declared, pacing deliberately between the two opposing parties. He dominated the room. Only Qui Gon did not cower back into the walls; he merely stood impassive, watching the stranger prowl back and forth with a very stony expression on his leonine face. "You hand over the culprit, and the dispute is resolved."

"Do you take us for fools?" Clat'Ha shouted at him, rigid with defiance. "We're not handing over anyone to your so-called corporate justice system. We all know what happens to those accused of wrong-doing inside Offworld."

The young man's shoulders rose diffidently. "Discipline and justice are the foundations of an effective organization. Wouldn't you agree, Master Jinn?"

"Indeed. As Republic ambassador, I will see to the right disposition of this matter. The case can be tried in the Senate courts, as is proper. If there is an arrest to be made, I will make it myself."

Obi Wan drew in a hissing breath. _Arrest?_ He clenched his teeth and strained to hear the tall mans' soft reply.

"Your vessel will of course need repairs. Offworld will be happy to provide a mech crew.. in due time. I'm sorry for the delay this might involve."

The Arconans muttered unhappily in their corner, and Qui Gon's head turned to consider them for a moment. Then he addressed the stranger again. "A delay is unacceptable. The Arconans are dependant on dactyl crystal to survive. We need to reach Bandomeer or bring another supply on board. Wihtout it, they will perish."

The dark-haired man stopped his pacing. "The delay is of your making. I'm certain I could expedite the repairs if my request for _justice_ is met in a timely fashion. The person responsible for those Whiphids' deaths must be turned over to Offworld authority."

"Jemba is the person responsible," Qui Gon said reasonably. "He gave the order for their life support to be withdrawn. Take him into custody if you will."

The tall man sneered. "I will eagerly await your answer," he growled. "I know the Jedi are sworn to protect the innocent. " His blue eyes swept over the Arconans huddled in their corner. "So tell me, Jinn, why are you protecting the guilty?" And with these condemning words, he swept round and stalked out, the Hutts and Whiphids trailing laughingly in his wake.

Qui Gon Jinn's keen gaze snapped up to the grille covering above, and ObI Wan hastily scooted backward, aware that he had allowed his shielding to drop in the aftermath of his shock and outrage. Who was that dark man from Offworld, and how dare he make such a wicked ultimatum

"Obi Wan," the Jedi master sighed. "You may as well come down from there."

* * *

Qui Gon waited until they had attained the privacy of their cabin before he said anything. And even then, he didn't say anything. He simply fixed Obi Wan with a very penetrating stare and waited patiently for the excuse.

Obi Wan didn't have one, so he didn't offer one. They stood locked in silence for several long minutes. At last he could stand it no longer. "Who was that man from Offworld?" he blurted out. "He felt…strange."

The lines around Qui Gon's eyes deepened slightly, his jaw muscles tensing. "his name is DuCrion. And I asked you to hide, not come eavesdropping."

"Maybe I managed _both."_

The tall Jedi shot him a cutting look from under lowered brows, and lowered himself onto the edge of the bunk, leveling out their significant height difference. "I have some previoius acquaintance with Du Crion. He will not be an easy person with whom to negotiate. Listen to me: as Jedi, we have a duty."

"Yes, I know," he supplied eagerly. "We're going to save the Arconans."

Qui Gon Jinn nodded slowly. "And how do you think we will accomplish that?"

Obi Wan watched the Jedi master carefully. His expression gave away nothing. "We can… will it come down to fighting?" He did not carry a saber, and there were _many_ Hutts. And DuCrion likely had other security forces at his disposal.

"What do you think?"

Obi Wan scowled. "No, it would be foolish to fight."

Qui Gon nodded, approval in his tired face. "No. We shall not be... _inspirational_. We do not have time for a protracted skirmish, and I am certain that many lives would be lost in the process. There is another course of action available to us."

Icy fear spilled down Obi Wan's spine, but he fought the urge to sink into the decking. He could do this. It was the best way. It was the only acceptable way. "I'll surrender myself to them," he said, firmly. The words came out clear and precise, and rang true. Some of the chill subsided. The Force swelled to meet him, muting the instinctual dread in his belly.

Qui Gon's eyes widened. "_No,_ you will not." His hands were very strong where they gripped into Obi Wan's shoulders. "I know this man well, and I know what he wants. No inexperienced Jedi should be placed at his mercy. I will deal with him myself. I need you to promise me that you will not interfere."

But that was unfair. Obi Wan clamped his mouth shut.

"Obi Wan. This is a precept of the Order. The older protect the younger. I want your word."

He shook his head stubbornly, searching, racking his mind for some other alternative.

"If you do not promise, young one, I am more than capable of restraining you against your will. I would prefer that you cooperate with me in this. Someone will need to contact the Council from Bandomeer and inform them of recent developments."

The Force rose higher within, rushing fleet and strong within his blood, singing to him. He knew what he had to do. "Yes, master." He dipped his head. "I promise I will not prevent you form doing what is right."

Satisfied, the tall master let his hands drop. He exhaled slowly, relief smoothing some of the hard-etched lines in his face. "Good, " he said. "I will speak with our Offworld friends again in an hour. After I leave with them, they will release this vessel. Continue on with the Arconans and Clat-Ha to Bandomeer, and contact the Council from the Ag-Corps headquarters there. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

After that they meditated, and after that they parted ways.

But not in the manner Qui Gon expected.


	4. Chapter 4

**Lineage**

* * *

**Part 4: Xanatos**

Obi Wan's heart thundered in his ears. He studied the control panel for the port side docking hatch seal, glanced up the corridor at the nearest threshold, with its pressure sensitive blast doors. What he planned was risky – _very_ risky. He drew in a deep breath. It was worth the risk. Qui Gon was going to meet with the Offworld people in a matter of minutes – unless a distraction of sufficient gravity and urgency intervened. It would be nice, he thought, if a band of Togorian space pirates could conveniently drop out of hyperspace and attack the _Monument_ at just this moment. He had daydreamed of such scenarios as a child… but no such miraculous interruption seemed to be forthcoming. He was on his own.

With the Force. He drew in its strength, felt new resolve flood through him. Risk no longer mattered. There was no try, only success or failure. He tensed, ready for the mighty leap which would save his life. Focused on the control panel, on the open blast doors. Three. Two. One.

He slammed the hatch release and sprang desperately for the far end of the corridor in one fluid motion. The docking portal opened, the air inside the passageway blasted through the gaping hole into black vacuum, and the pressure doors responded by slamming closed, cutting off this section of hallway before the hull breach could void the entire ship's atmosphere.

Obi Wan slid beneath the crushing durasteel panel with a centimeter to spare, skidding on his belly a significant distance into the next stretch of hallway. Claxons blared; emergency lights flashed. He scrambled upright, dusting off his trousers. It hadn't been a very _elegant_ maneuver – but he was not floating in space, so he supposed it counted as success. Already he could hear feet pounding on the decks overhead.

Hopefully a hull breach would be enough to merit Qui Gon's attention, to afford a few minutes' distraction. He launched himself back into the overhead ducts, and hurried on his way.

* * *

"And who are you?"

Obi Wan glanced over his shoulder, needlessly, feeling Qui Gon Jinn's proximity, the blaze of steadfast determination warming the Force as the tall Jedi dealt with the burgeoning emergency. Soon he would have it well in hand, and then waste no time in coming here. There wasn't time to haggle. "I am the one you are looking for. It was I who attacked the Whiphids."

DuCrion flicked his azure-lined cloak over one broad shoulder, eyes narrowing. The Force voided of its inherent fire, a chill spreading like seeping blood from the stranger's presence. Obi Wan balked a little, feeling a sudden pit form in his belly, an ulcerous gnawing. There was something very, very _wrong_ about this man…

DuCrion barked out a few short orders to some underlings behind him, and stepped aside to admit his guest. The door hissed closed behind them, and he tapped a lock code into the panel.

"You are surrendering yourself in exchange for safe passage of the _Monument_ and its occupants?" the tall man asked, silkily. "How noble."

The room was a mere conference chamber, empty of ornament save a bland table anchored to the deck, and a cluster of worn swivel-based chairs. Whiphids armed with electrostaves lounged against the doorframe, flanked the opposite entrance. They converged upon the young Jedi, emanating palpable threat, as he moved into the center of the low-ceilinged space.

DuCrion gazed down at him pensively, his cold blue eyes raking over Obi Wan's tunics, lingering on his close-cropped hair, finally settling like a clinging leech upon his face. His mouth curved into an amused crescent. "Temple bred, hm?"

Obi Wan frowned. What did this man care about the Jedi? "I am fulfilling the terms of your demand. Now keep your end of the agreement," he retorted.

The Offworld executive's laugh was not a pleasant one. "A master negotiator already," he sneered. "Very well. You have persuaded me to abandon my villainy. Let us retire to my private shuttle and continue this diplomatic exchange in more civilized surroundings." he added a few curt commands to the Whiphids, in a language Obi Wan did not recognize, and in a moment they had hustled their way through the far door, shoving him along in their midst.

* * *

Somehow, against all likelihood, Qui Gon Jinn was waiting for them in the echoing hangar bay. His saber hilt was in his hand, the Force churning around him in slow majesty, transforming the gentle master into a formidable warrior, a power to be reckoned with.

"Xanatos," the Jedi master called out, as the small Offworld group strode across the scuffed decking.

DuCrion raised a hand, signaling the Whiphids behind him to halt. He stepped forward with casual grace, casting a meaningful glance at Obi Wan, held firmly between the Whiphids. The other pair of guards leveled their blasters at the tall Jedi, who did not so much as acknowledge the gesture.

"I have no further business here," Du Crion said softly. "We have arrested the felon and will be taking our leave, Master Jinn."

Qui Gon's face registered a stunned disbelief. "Obi Wan! What are you doing?" he exclaimed, horrified.

The young Jedi's heart twisted at the disappointment and shock in the tall man's voice, but he answered steadily. "You were going to turn yourself over," he said. "I can't let you do that when this is my fault."

The Jedi master's grey eyes flashed. "You gave me your word," he accused.

"I promised not to prevent you doing what was right. Sacrificing yourself isn't _right._ With respect, your life is far more valuable than mine."

The tall man glowered at him, drawing in a sharp breath as though to speak again, but Xanatos DuCrion's silvery chuckle interrupted the exchange. "How can you stand it, Qui Gon?" he scoffed. "The precious naivete. You don't deserve such mindless loyalty."

The green saber blade swept in a warning arc. "Release the boy, Xanatos. Your argument is with me."

"Is it? I thought my argument was with the entire damnable Order." DuCrion's features hardened into ice, and he extended one hand, a small projector plate balanced on the palm. At a flick of his thumb, the shimmering image of Jemba the Hutt appeared. In faint blue outline behind him were visible a row of kneeling Arconans, guarded by other Hutts and more Whiphids. "Shall I give the order to begin executing our prisoners? Or shall I continue unimpeded on my way?"

There was a long moment of sickening quiet, in which the Whiphid's snuffling breaths were the only sound.

Qui Gon's saber hissed loudly in the cavernous hangar bay as it deactivated. He shot a burning look at Obi Wan. "That was not a wise decision," he growled.

"It was mine to make," the boy responded. And it was. He had saved the Arconans, and now the Jedi master. What did his life matter in the end? He had already three deaths to his credit; to add even a single more would break him.

Still, all he saw as the Whiphids hustled him up the shuttle's boarding ramp was Qui Gon Jinn's face, frozen in hard and inscrutable lines, the eyes limpid with pain and betrayal. He willed the man to see that _this_ was for the greater good, that it was the best way, that this _was_ his service as a Jedi, in payment for all the mistakes he had already made.

But he could not tell if the Jedi master understood.

* * *

"You do realize that he is duty-bound to rescue the hostages before he follows us," DuCrion drawled, settling in the pilot's seat with casual grace. "Which gives us just enough time to make a hyperspace jump."

The Whiphids thrust Obi Wan roughly into the co-pilot's chair, loomed on either side, weapons idly crackling in the cycled air of the cockpit.

The dark-haired man flicked his glacial eyes in their direction. "Leave us," he commanded, his mouth thinning to a sadistic line. He watched his minions lumber their way out the door and sealed the hatch behind them. "It's just you and me now."

Obi Wan disdained to reply, and gazed through the viewport as the _Monument, _ and Qui Gon, disappeared into a swimming blur of stars. He had not been awake for the freighter's initial hyperspace jump, so this was technically his first experience with the nebulous realm of supralight travel. His hands gripped the edges of the seat as the Force warped and swelled, melding into a kaleidoscope of jarring new sensations. It took a minute to reorient himself. And even then he wasn't quite sure about the sensation.

DuCrion leaned back and surveyed him thoughtfully, almost amicably. "Some people never grow accustomed to that," he smiled, without any real feeling. "Master Jinn always said that the Force doesn't _flow_ in hyperspace."

Obi Wan scowled. The man was clearly an enemy of the Jedi master; so why did he care about the man's opinions and utterances? And what did he know of the Force, for that matter? "It's still here," he said, neutrally. And it was; reverberating around the two of them, filling the cockpit with a lucid power. It was almost tangible, more _physical_ and outward than he had ever felt it. How …strange. "It feels inside out," he added, more to himself than his unwanted companion.

DuCrion raised an eyebrow. "Inside out, hm?" He chuckled a bit, then fiddled with the console controls. ObiWan watched, covertly memorizing the layout. Outside a simulator, he had never piloted anything more complicated than an aircar – but he knew enough in theory to guide this shuttle to the nearest space station or planet. Reverting to realspace might be a problem – he had never done that, and he knew that a mistake could be disastrous. He would have to wait until they were out of the hyperspace tunnel before he made a move.

"Relax,"" his captor advised. "We have a bit of a jaunt ahead of us."

* * *

The journey passed in long stretches of silence. The Whiphids stood sentinel behind the closed cokpit hatch, a pair of guttering candles smoking thickly in the Force. DuCrion occupied himself with a datapad, and with the ship, and with staring at Obi Wan in undisguised curiosity, as though he were a specimen on display at the Coruscant zoo. The young Jedi ignored this unnerving silent dissection and tried to rest in the Force, conserving strength. Now that his plan had succeeded, and his bold act was committed, his fate sealed, some of his fiery enthusiasm had died away to be replaced by a calculating desire to _survive._ He hadn't thought far beyond the moment of surrender, and of preventing Qui Gon Jinn from doing the same. Now he found his mind leaping ahead to questions about the immediate future. Was he on his way to imprisonment? Execution? Or something else?

"Tell me," DuCrion broke a particularly lengthy silence, "Why did you kill my security officers?"

"They attacked me – without reason," Obi Wan told him.

"Do you always kill people who cross you?" the dark-haired man inquired. "It's not a very Jedi-like trait."

The boy looked away, ignoring the taunt. DuCrion could speculate all he wished; the topic was not open to debate, and concerned only himself and the Force.

"I'm not judging, you know," DuCrion answered, after a short pause. "I'm intrigued. What were you doing on the _ Monument_, hm? I see you have no braid. Were you on your way to the Ag Corps on Bandomeer?"

Obi Wan's shoulder rose in a diffident shrug. "Perhaps."

"So the Temple rejected you. Let me guess: you're too angry, lack control and discipline. You aren't suitable material for a Knight."

The words needled at him, strirred his uneasy belly into new contortions. "Perhaps."

"Have you ever considered that you needn't listen to the Council's dictate? You could leave the Order entirely, you know. I'm sure you have a birth family somewhere in the galaxy."

"I'm not- it hardly matters now, does it?"

DuCrion laughed at the sarcasm in his voice. "I suppose not," he agreed, coldly. "You've accrued quite a debt to me, haven't you?"

"From your point of view." He wished that the man would lapse into another contemplative silence; he was far better company when he wasn't talking.

"Tell me this, then: Jinn was willing to take your place. Why didn't you allow it?"

Obi Wan felt a flare of indignation spark in his blood. "I'm not a coward," he told the impertinent Offworld executive. Anger stirred, loosing his tongue. "Unlike one who uses innocents as hostages in a power struggle."

DuCrion's blue eyes lit with an icy humor. "Ah, your contempt moves me to deep remorse." He turned back to the viewport, and the endless sworls of hyperspace beyond. "You really don't see the irony, do you?"

"What irony?" his patience with the persistent stream of smug commentary was wearing thin. DuCrion was a vexatious gundark, one who invited _inspiration _at every moment. Obi Wan found himself longing for a 'saber, even one of the training models from the Temple dojo.

The dark-haired man reached across the space to touch his face, but Obi Wan shied away with a half-snarl of distaste. "Oh, nothing," DuCrion said, in that same enigmatic manner.

There was no possible reply to that, so he made none.

* * *

"Tell me again why Master Jinn was on board that freighter?" DuCrion asked.

Obi Wan tore his attention away from the hypnotic dance of the hyperspace tunnel, and blinked himself back to present awareness. His mind had wandered back to pleasanter things, to memories before _this_ nightmare.

"Master Jinn? He was on a mission."

The dark-haired man's eyebrows rose. "To Bandomeer?" he mused. "The Mineral Harvest executives requested Jedi assistance? They don't trust Offworld's labor agreement? I'm offended."

The young Jedi bit his lip. Perhaps he should not have said anything. He had been taught all his life to answer, and truthfully – but this man surely did not deserve such courtesy. He was a liar and manipulator himself. "I don't know anything about Master Jinn's mission."

"Really? I find that difficult to believe. You were _accompanying_ him, after all."

"No- I was headed to the Ag-Corps outpost to take an assignment there. I told you that already."

But DuCrion was not so easily deterred. He propped one ankle across the opposite knee and folded his arms, rocking back and forth slightly in the pilot's seat. "I've been thinking about that claim. I don't believe you. The Order wouldn't send a born killer like you into the service Corps. They keep track of their own… the more dangerous, the more closely. Did you know that?"

Obi Wan shook his head. DuCrion was a liar, yet these words bore a chilling kernel of truth. The Force whispered behind his temples that this was plausible, likely.

"Surely you know what a Shadow is? No? Ah, well…. I suppose you will tell me they don't fill the crechelings in on such unpleasant facets of life."

What did that mean? "I don't know what you are talking about," he snorted.

"Of course not. Shadows are unpleasant people, in my experience. I've had one or two poke their noses into my business lately. I strongly object to such an invasion of privacy, you know. But the Jedi Order is unscrupulous in the extreme. I wouldn't put it past them to attempt a more subtle infiltration."

There was a hostility edging these words with poison. Obi Wan watched his interlocutor carefully, expecting a deadly knife to be unsheathed at any moment. He had no idea what a Shadow was, or why such a person would be spying on DuCrion, but he could sense the man's suspicion circling round him like a bird of prey hovering over a wounded animal.

"I still don't know what you are talking about."

"No? Then why aren't you wearing a Padawan's braid?"

What absurdity. "I'm not a Padawan," he retorted. "I should think that was obvious."

DuCrions eyes narrowed. "You are traveling in Master Jinn's company; you are exceedingly strong in the Force – far, far too strong to be assigned to AgriCorps – and you very cleverly managed to manipulate the situation so that it was you, and not he, that ended up in my company. Removing your braid isn't sufficient disguise to deceive me."

"_What?"_

"I know an undercover operation when I see one. You're young to be training as a Shadow, but I can see the talent. What surprises me is that Jinn would agree to permit _his_ Padawan to undertake such a mission."

Obi Wan shook his head. "You are delusional."

"No, I'm experienced."

There was an uncomfortable pause. What in the name of the Force was wrong with this man, besides his obvious proclivity for cruelty? Was his mind bent? Why was he so obsessed with the Jedi, to the point of entertaining paranoid delusions about "Shadows" hounding his steps?

"I assure you, you are mistaken."

The Offworld executive waved a dismissive hand. "Master Jinn has already taught you the art of lying, I see. You are an apt pupil."

Obi Wan held his tongue after that. He returned to contemplating the lazy parade of transdimensional light, and dwelt on memories of a time and innocence to which he could never return.

* * *

The Force turned right-side-out again when they reverted to realspace.

Breathing through the giddying sensation, blinking at the newly-resolved vista of stars and distant nebulae spread before them like a scene change in some surreal play, Obi Wan decided to seize the moment.

"I'll take over the piloting," he impressed upon DuCrion, bringing the Force to bear against the man's mind, pressuring his will to yield in the face of his desire. When he met resistance, he pushed harder, heedless of restraint.

Nothing happened. "That won't work on me, you treacherous little _whelp,"_ his captor spat, swiveling in his chair so that they faced each other, a scant arm's width apart. The console lights flickered ominously as the Force surged higher, shadow and light intermingled.

Obi Wan hissed as a lance of hostile will cut across his own mind. He shielded himself, clenched his jaw shut and repelled the attack, a psychic whiplash defense. A moment later, they were both standing, the Force now shattering into motley fragments, dark and light, splinters which burned and cut as they warred with one another.

_DuCrion could use the Force._

_He was…. a Jedi._

_He was Dark._

The thoughts cascaded over the brink of awareness, plummeting over the edge of certainty into a panicked freefall. Obi Wan had heard of such things, of such persons, had been catechized and scolded and drilled and warned all his life against just such a horrific perversion of his inborn gift. _Beware the Dark Side. _ The words of the mantra throbbed in his ears even now. He had always imagined the Dark as tentacled, formless, blood-stained and rotting. Not this. Not _human._

"What's the matter?" DuCrion mocked him. "Did Master Jinn neglect to mention our mutual history? He taught me everything I know, after all."

"You traitor!" Obi Wan shouted, voice cracking in horror.

The Dark acolyte raised a hand, clenched the fingers tight. A vise clamped about the young Jedi's windpipe, cutting off breath, bruising soft tissue. He staggered against the copilot's seat, gasping for air that would not come, lungs burning, his foe's cruel chuckling ringing in his ears, his pulse drumming a swift protest in his veins.

He seized the ragged tendrils of Light, the torn shreds of Dark, and threw them against DuCrion with all his might. The raven-haired man was flung backward, slamming into the bulkhead with a resounding thud. Obi Wan sucked in a rasping breath, eyes streaming.

The next moment, they had closed hand to hand.

Sadly, DuCrion was taller, stronger, and well-trained. After all, Qui Gon Jinn had taught him everything he knew.

* * *

Obi Wan crouched in the corner of the cockpit, as far from DuCrion's glowering form as he could get, fingers questing over the smooth contours of the electrocollar around his neck. His every muscle ached with the memory of its first _demonstration_ of efficacy; and beneath his torn tunics, he knew he sported new and spreading bruises from the confrontation with his new enemy. He pulled his legs up tighter against his body, seeking his own warmth as shield against the pervasive and clawing miasma seeping off his captor.

"Don't try anything foolish," DuCrion advisedt him, without turning around. A planet's night-shrouded surface loomed in the viewport. From orbit, a few faint clusters of lights picked out the boundaries of vast settlements below.

"Where are we?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" The shuttle's decks hiccupped as they descended into the upper atmosphere. Clouds smeared over the viewport, veiled the glittering metropolis. "It hardly matters – you'll only be touring the inside of its prison facilities. I can't have a dangerous _spy_ like you wandering unfettered through the streets of my beloved homeworld, now can I?"

The young Jedi's brows came together thunderously. His hands clenched hard about the collar's unyielding curve, and he pulled. It _had_ to have a joint. He channeled the Force through his hands, _tearing_ at the uncooperative piece of metal –

"I _said_ don't try it," DuCrion barked, and flicked his fingers.

Obi Wan toppled backward, spine arching in a tight spasm, muscle and nerves rigid with fleet agony. It lasted a measureless aeon, and then another. Afterward he rolled into a ball, hiding his face, hyperventilating. The last rays of failing radiance bled out of the Force, until it was naught but smothering Darkness. A seed germinated deep in his soul, a black speck sending out its first tentative roots. He was tempted to plunge into bottomless rage.

_Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. _He whispered the familiar words to himself through chattering teeth, and found that they were a sweet lullaby. He curled tighter around his center of calm and closed his eyes.

But the respite was all too brief.

* * *

"Wake up."

The hand shaking his shoulder was rough, and felt more like a hard-soled boot, but he stirred groggily awake anyhow, confused by the hardness of the surface beneath his cold limbs, and the heaviness in the Force. "Master…" he protested, as the hand-boot nudged harder, against a tender bruise on his shoulder.

"I said, _get up."_ Now hands seized the cloth of his tunics and hauled him halfway upright. He snapped into alertness, found himself nose to nose with DuCrion, looking into a pair of blue eyes as cold as a primordial ocean. Threat swam in their depths.

He pushed the man off, stumbled to his feet awkwardly. His hands came up to tug at the infernal collar again, but it only seemed to have tightened while he slept. Likely enough his throat had swollen. He coughed and then glared at the madman standing with such brazen malice before him. A pair of Whiphids lurked in the background.

"Let's go."

He trudged down the ramp, the Whiphids bringing up the rear of their halting procession. Obi Wan's eyes rose upward with the silhouette of a giant, light-spangled monstrosity of black duracrete and piping, a fortress sweeping up to a blunt crown of guard towers and merciless teeth. The sky was murky purple, starless. A cold wind bit through his thin tunic and leggings, sharp with moisture. The air tasted of iron and burned thin in his chest. They must be at a great altitude, perhaps in a mountain range.

"Welcome to your new home," Du Crion smiled as they approached the heavily fortified gates. A squad of security officers awaited them, faces hidden behind visored helmets. He strode forward to address the waiting escort privately. The word "Jedi" echoed across the cold pavement.

Crimson rained molten through the shuddering Force.

At a signal, the Whiphids urged Obi Wan forward with the butt ends of their electrostaves, and his steps did not falter – despite the _very bad feeling _blooming in his heart, the black leaves and shoots of his seedling fear.

He was very, very far from home. And quite alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Lineage**

* * *

**Part 5: Bandomeer**

Qui Gon was down the _Monument's_ boarding ramp before the radiation dampers had ceased their cooling cycle, carving a path through the jumble of eager porters and ground mechanics bustling around the derelict freighter's rusting hull.

Clat'Ha was only a few paces behind. "The comm. equipment at the Mineral Harvest headquarters is an antique junkpile," she called after him. "But it's the best we have on planet!"

He nodded, swept the doors open with a nudge of the Force, ascended a short flight of stairs to the building's main floor. A few tottering service droids and a bevy of uniformed Arconans scattered out of his way as he made for the old-fashioned comm. console propped in a far corner.

"May we be of assistance?" one of the bolder Arconans inquired, wringing a pair of spindly-fingered hands together.

"Get me a connection to Coruscant," the Jedi master ground out. Urgency scoured his request of all gentleness; he winced at the tone of command in his own voice and hastily added, "Please."

Clat'Ha caught up to him, breathless. "Those kriffing Hutt _barves._ Sabotaging the shipboard comms and the emergency escape vessels. What if we'd had a real emergency? What if we'd been attacked by pirates? They aren't strangers to these regions."

The comm. panel spluttered as the Arconan fiddled with its outdated circuitry.

"Jemba was acting under orders, " Qui Gon supplied tersely. "And he has indeed gained his superior a significant head start. Clat'Ha. I will require a ship – anything at all that you can spare.'

The red haired woman cast about. "Si Treemba!" she shouted at a young Arconan skulking in the corner. "Check with the vehicle pool. I need a spaceworthy private vessel."

"We don't think there are any –"

"Just do it!"

Cowed by Clat'Ha's ferocity, the adolescent Arconan scuttled timidly away on his errand, casting apprehensive looks about him as he left.

"We have a signal, sir Jedi."

Qui Gon took a deep breath and prepared to face the Council.

* * *

"Flourished, his arrogance has. Fed by wealth and privilege."

"Yes, master." Qui Gon watched Yoda's hologram carefully. There was no sympathy in the gimlet eyes, only reprimand and disapproval.

"Dangerous is your lost Padawan become. Allowed young Obi Wan to go with him, you _should not have._"

"The boy defied my explicit directive and manipulated events to his liking," Qui Gon protested. "I would never _permit_ a child to deal with Xanatos alone." How could the ancient master even suggest such a thing? He bit back some of his outrage, releasing it into the Force.

"The boy is defiant, yet you wish to take him as your Learner?" Dubiety weighted Mace's deep voice with a dangerous undercurrent.

Yoda snorted. "A fitting match is it, Master Windu. Headstrong are they both." One clawed hand thrust forward at the holocam. "Contact you DuCrion will. Revenge his motive is, and upon you his resentment centers still."

"I know this. I will negotiate for the boy's release."

"Unlikely to succeed, is that," Yoda snorted.

Mace stirred in uneasy agreement. "And if you do not succeed, _we will_ intervene."

The two men stared each other down, expressionless. Much passed unspoken between them. Qui Gon closed his eyes, finding his tenuous center of calm. "Xanatos is like any other petty tyrant –" he began.

"No," the Korun master interrupted sharply. "He is not. Do not allow your judgement to be clouded by memory, Qui Gon. Xanatos was trained as a Jedi. That knowledge and power cannot be stripped form him. He bears it now and always, and if he chooses to serve the Dark, then we have little choice."

"No neutrality is there, in the Force," Yoda affirmed. "Light or Dark, only. If fallen he has, then swiftly we must act."

"I will speak to him first," Qui Gon insisted "I am not certain –"

"The Council is certain," Mace cut him off, stern as chiseled granite, harsh as excoriating light, the radiance off a virgin star.

There was no arguing with Mace Windu in such a mood. Qui Gon bowed, a tight knot constricting his chest, and ended the transmission.

* * *

He sought peace in the Living Force.

When Xanatos abandoned the Order, on Telos, embracing caste and riches in place of humility and detachment, his biological birthright in favor of his Force-given one, Qui Gon had grieved. And had blamed himself. Others had seen it differently; Dooku had not thought the young man's decision so very reprehensible- had in fact dismissed Qui Gon's agony of mind as a manifestation of inappropriate attachment.

Mace Windu had warned that no Jedi could truly _leave_ the Path,; that there was no return to the normalcy of secular existence, that the duties and burdens laid upon every Force-sensitive born into the galaxy could _never_ be abdicated. To be so gifted was to serve; the only choice was whether to serve the Light or be a slave to the Dark.

Mace dealt unflinchingly with harsh truths. He had promised Qui Gon then, that should Xanatos show himself to be utterly fallen, should he prove to be twisted beyond redemption, as all such dupes of the Dark were, then the Order would take action. For they were honor and duty bound to protect the innocent, even against the perverted members of their own community. Perhaps especially against these. It had been a thousand years since the Sith had tasted defeat and extinction, and Force willing no other being would stumble onto that path ever again.

_No neutrality is there._

His gut clenched. To lose an apprentice to greed and luxury was one thing; to lose him again, and irrevocably, to the Dark, was another. And to lose a _second_ student to the cruelty of the first was… beyond endurance.

He had to find Obi Wan, for his own sake as much as the boy's.

They had a connection, however stridently the young one denied it, or fled from it. It kindled bright within, and promised future strength. He centered on this invisible thread between himself and the boy, reaching across unknown parsecs.

_Obi Wan. Where are you? _

A spark, a startled jolt of recognition. The boy was full of Light, but still so young, inexperienced.. He did not know how to focus on the tenuous bond. The answer came as a jumble of emotions, predominant among them fear and confusion.

_Fear leads to anger, anger to hate…_

Their minds coursed over the smooth-worn words like clear water over its riverbed, tradition flowing over time. The connection strengthened and steadied, a little.

_Show me where you are._

An image: blank walls of ebony stone, a red energy barrier. Cold. And a lack of food, a sickening twist of emptiness Qui Gon felt in his own belly. He smiled. The latter aspect of the phantasmal medley was more vibrant than the others, and edged with a sharp resentment. A twelve year old boy might countenance imprisonment and other deprivations with equanimity… but _starvation_ was an affront to the cosmos itself. He felt he might chuckle at the fierce indignation attached to the boy's hunger – if he could trust himself not to weep.

_But where? What planet?_

Confusion, uncertainty. A blurred horizon, indistinct and smearing into nameless dread. A towering fortress, a thing magnified into nightmarish proportion by subjective perceptions. They were going to have to work on focused calm, on detailed and objective observation… but that was later. He needed something more concrete now.

_A name. A city? A person? An…animal? A plant? Show me something. Any clue._

But all that appeared before his swimming inner vision was the sneering visage of his ex-Padawan, Xanatos' dark hair wreathing a face purged of innocence, subtly aged into cynical despair. And then words, or the clear essential meaning of words, floated into his mind, across the fledgling bond. They formed carefully, like delicate bubbles of glass blown by a Togrutan artisan, crafted with the determination of a child taking its first steps. They took shape, translucent with wistful humor.

_Not Vetruvia. No fermis._

The meditation was interrupted, and the fragile connection shattered to ephemeral dust, floating in the Force's currents.

"I – I'm sorry to disturb you, " Clat'Ha stammered. "We need your help, Master Jedi. Jemba is trying to strong-arm the Arconans. We need you to negotiate for us."

He rose, reeling a bit from the abrupt diconnection, and made her a bow. "Of course."

* * *

Jemba had several equally oily and repulsive advisors with him. They did not use chairs, but merely slithered up to the battered meeting table in the Mineral Harvest board room, a faint phosphorescent slime trail coating the smooth floor behind them. The small chamber was instantly filled with the incomparable pungency of Hutt.

"Your profits have been steadily decreasing over the last three quarters," Jemba intoned, waving one pudgy hand at the rotating holo-display hovering above the tabletop projector. "Another period like that and you won't be able to meet the Federation shipping taxes."

Clat'Ha pounded both hands onto the smooth surface. "Production has slowed because of your interference! What about that fiasco with the thermocouplers last month? Don't think we are too stupid to know sabotage when we see it."

The Hutt's long mouth rippled, and his purple tongue delicately ran over its lipless extent. "The Trade Federation's only concern is your tariff payment, not your technical difficulties."

The Arconans beside Clat'ha trembled and muttered among themselves. The fiery redhead cast them an exasperated glance.

"We offer you a solution: Offworld will assume labor management of your corporation and relieve your tax burden. You will remain operational, profitable, and legal. All we ask is a reasonable share of proceeds."

"Slavery!" Clat'ha fumed. "We do not accept!"

But the Arconans behind her jostled together, flat heads swaying in consternation, large eyes shining with fright.

The Hutt grinned. "It is a perfectly reasonable offer, is it not, Master Jedi?"

Qui Gon was unimpressed. "These people have worked hard to maintain their independence from giant conglomerates like Offworld. They may value that freedom more highly than the… security.. you are able to offer."

Jemba snorted, a wet and explosive sound. "How will you pay the next tax cycle?" he scoffed. "Do you expect a miracle in the next few days?"

Clat'Ha's spine stiffened. "Get out of my sight," she growled. "I'm done."

Jemba leered. "If you cannot pay the Federation, the Arconans' labor contracts will be bought by Offworld. We have a standing agreement with the Nemoidians. And I assure you, the conditions would be better under the terms of our initial offer."

Qui Gon intervened. "The Mineral Harvest Cooperative will consider your offer, and communicate their final decision in two days' time. Until then, Offworld will not interfere in mining operations here on Bandomeer. After all, you would not want the Republic to launch an investigation."

Jemba's eyes slitted. "There has never been a Republic Labor Committee this far out."

"Yet," the Jedi master replied. "I am intrigued by your bargaining methods; perhaps the Regulatory Committee would be intrigued by your other business practices."

Jemba's glare made the Arconans shake like reeds in a brisk wind. Qui Gon was impassive.

When the Offworld representatives had departed, Clat'Ha sighed. "It _will _ take a miracle," she muttered. "Do you have any to spare, Master Jinn?"

He was sorry to say that he did not.

* * *

That very night, the long-awaited message was delivered, in the form of a direct transmission from unspecified orgins. Qui Gon answered the comm in person, and watched Xanatos' holographic image waver slightly, as though trembling with an ethereal mirth.

"Qui Gon Jinn," the ex-Jedi greeted his former master. "I understand that you have a diplomatic assignment on Bandomeer."

"I am on Bandomeer at present, yes," he replied neutrally, watching the static lines crawl up the blue effigy, breaking it into disparate slices, layers of deception and cruelty and twisted amusement, the complex anatomy of a Jedi gone lamentably wrong.

"What a coincidence," Xanatos smiled, perfect teeth flashing in a white and feral grimace, a wolfish display of power. "I have a great number of mining interests on that system."

Qui Gon nodded. "Indeed. I have had the misfortune to encounter your staff here."

"And I have had the misfortune to meet your new Padawan. That ploy involving his supposed _surrender_ was cleverly done. Not your usual direct approach. You're growing sly in your old age, my master."

The Jedi stirred and unfolded his arms. One hand rested on his 'saber's pommel. "You have forfeited any claim to use that title," he admonished his former student. "And I do not recognize you as my Learner."

Xanatos' mouth twisted. "My replacement is fortunate that I am not so easily deceived," he continued. "Had I permitted him to stand trial under Trade Federation regulations, he would have been turned over to the Whiphid Tribal Council. And you know, they favor _castration_ as a punishment for murder."

Qui Gon's hand tightened about the smooth hilt of his weapon. "I am familiar with their primitive justice system," he said tightly.

"Of course," the rogue Jedi shrugged, "He is certainly pretty enough to make a court eunuch… a cup-bearer, perhaps. Maybe I should reconsider my decision."

Qui Gon did not rise to the bait. He glanced at Clat-Ha, furiously manipulating the comm. tracer. She shot a swift look up at him, shook her head curtly. No clear point of origin. Xanatos must have a very effective scrambler, or else Bandomeer's equipment was sadly obsolete.

"Espionage is a crime bearing the penalty of death under Offworld jurisdiction," the small blue figure added, eyes narrowing into predatorial slats. "I must admit I was appalled that the Order would send a _child_ into such a dangerous situation. And it takes a great deal to disillusion me these days. The Council has sunk lower than I thought possible."

"And yet you have detained that same _child_ as a prisoner. I doubt you've afforded him any kindness. How are you superior?" he blandly countered.

The taunt sharpened Xanatos' resentment to a razored contempt. "I might ask _you_ why your Padawan is covered in burns and welts. Do you have a penchant for harsh discipline now, Qui Gon? Are you trying to beat the Dark out of your student?"

The Jedi master did not ask how his interlocutor had come by this piece of information. Hopefully, it had involved nothing worse than a routine strip search. He steadied his breathing and pressed his lips into a hard line.

Xanatos sneered again. "I do not believe in such savage and clumsy methods. After all, youth are still so very impressionable. I think there is hope for his reformation, which is why I am suspending the sentence of execution and taking your boy under my wing for a while. I have much to teach – much that you did not bother to show me when I was under your so-called instruction."

"Take care, Xanatos. To leave the Order is one thing; to molest one of our own is another. Such action will bring down swift action on your head."

"What? _Revenge?_ I welcome such a display of gross hypocrisy."

Qui Gon's hand clenched around the saber hilt. "Beware, Xanatos. You are teetering on the brink of another precipice."

"I don't need your _guidance_ any longer, master," the other scoffed. "Convey my regards to the Council, and be sure they understand the extent of their folly." The hologram flickered out of existence in a bitter snap of light.

"I'm sorry," Clat'Ha murmured. "We just couldn't pin down his location."

"The Force will provide a way," Qui Gon assured the grave-faced woman – for his own sake as much as hers.

* * *

Mace Windu's eyes burned with quiet fire, even across the countless lightyears. "He has gone too far," The Korun master's deep voice was hard, weighted with final judgment. "We will not tolerate such abuse."

Qui Gon sank in to the chair, watched his lifelong friend's clear cut features, set in lines of flinty resolve. His heart sank. "Mace," he said.

The revered Jedi passed one strong hand over his smooth scalp. "I'm sorry, Qui Gon, " he murmured. "I had hoped, for your sake, that it would not come to this."

He bowed his head, releasing a fresh wave of grief. And another. The Living Force washed them away, cleansed his soul of its unshed tears. "Who will you send?" he asked, heavily, wanting to know yet dreading the answer.

Mace leaned back in the Council chamber chair. He did not glance sideways for confirmation, which meant he was alone. This was a private conference, a gesture of compassion to a childhood friend. "Master Dooku volunteered," Mace replied, after a long silence.

A muscle in Qui Gon's jaw twitched. "I see."

The Korun Jedi steepled his fingers together. "You will accompany him, if he requests it.. Du Crion is a formidable opponent and you know him best."

He bowed his head, in acquiescence and renewed sorrow. Release. "Of course."

Mace watched him, and in the dark pools of his eyes there was a soft unfolding of regret. "I'm sorry, Qui Gon."

He nodded. "I know, my friend. But I will do what I must."

They considered each other for another long stretch of time, their mutual understanding unspoken. "May the Force be with you," Mace said at last, and ended the transmission.

* * *

"Clat'Ha. I have a possible solution."

"A miracle?" the weary woman asked, arching her brows in disbelief.

"Let it be known that a motherlode has been discovered on Level 8."

She frowned. "But Level 8 is barely excavated, not yet stable- and there hasn't been-"

"Trust me. And make sure Jemba hears of this development, too."

A slow smile spread across Clat'Ha's face. She tightened the flexible band that kept her riot of flame-colored hair at bay. "I see," she nodded. "I didn't know you Jedi were allowed to lie."

Qui Gon bowed. "It is you, and not I, who will be disseminating the rumor," he told her.

* * *

_The Force will provide a way._ Qui Gon reached into its all-encompassing currents, plunging heedless of consequence into deep waters, seeking the rash young spirit who had so foolishly separated himself from protection and counsel aboard the _Monument._ At first he thought he might be too late, that hope was lost… but then, just as he was about to cease his anxious questing, a tentative reply fluttered across his deeply-submerged awareness.

The touch quickened into a bright connection.

_... Master?_

Qui Gon's heart melted at the undertone of sheerest relief. He stilled his mind, cupped the trembling bond in two hands, luminous water threatening to spill over into non-existence.

_I need to know where you are. What system are you on?_

Empty regret met his query.

_Obi Wan. Let the Force show you. Relax and listen. _

And at last a glimmering thread appeared, a soft line fretted with certainty. _Homeworld. _ An image of Xanatos, cruelly caricatured - or perhaps displayed in iconic clarity- , his hair fading into a writhing halo of shadow, his eyes blank sockets in which blue coals sullenly smoldered. Another memory tinged by subjective experience. But it was enough.

"Telos," Qui Gon said aloud.

The gossamer connection snapped, and he was alone, on Bandomeer. The Force surged high in warning, and he leapt up, his hand closing round his 'saber's hilt. He was needed in the mines. Jemba was a fool of the most rarified vintage.

* * *

Clat'Ha stood, arms akimbo, glowering at the prisoners incarcerated behind the shimmering energy field. The Whiphids' ratted fur reflected the dull red light, painted them in a sullen red.

"What a barve Jemba is. Those explosives were timed to go off during the morning work shift," she snarled. "Why not just collapse the mine at night, when nobody was inside?"

Qui Gon raised an eyebrow. "Intimidation tactics seldom involve such respect for life," he reminded her. "Your Arconans are motivated by fear. Even their devotion to the Mineral Harvest is driven by _fear_ of tyranny. You have a difficult task, Clat'Ha."

The woman sighed and rubbed a hand over her gritty eyes. "I am also grateful that you were able to defuse the bombs, Master Jinn. We don't have the technical staff here… we don't have _half_ of what we need here."

He watched the Whiphids scowl and mutter behind the soundproof barrier. "It is a skill which has, I'm sorry to say, proved very useful over the years."

Clat'Ha managed an exhausted bark of laughter. "Kriffing Hutt barves," she muttered.

On cue, Jemba appeared flanked by two other corpulent worms. "What is this about?" he demanded, gimlet eyes sliding over the feisty Mine director to rest upon Qui Gon.

"Your employees were apprehended planting charges in an unstable mine area owned by the Mineral Harvest Cooperative. I have arrested them pending Senate trial."

The Hutt squirmed.

"I am sure your superior corporate officers will cooperate with my request for full disclosure of records concerning these two felons."

Jemba writhed, and his fat tongue formed a strange curse or two. "We prefer to deal with disciplinary issues internally," he wheezed. "Offworld policy."

Clat'Ha stamped a foot. "Over my dead body!"

Jemba leered. "As you say."

The Jedi master traced a slow and calculating circle around the Hutt's misshapen body. Jemba watched him, nostrils flaring uneasily. "I would be willing to turn these miscreants over to your corporate system," he said, "If I thought Offworld itself harbored no ill intent toward the Cooperative."

A pause in which the repulsive slug calculated the risk, the cost to his private bank account. "Offworld is highly supportive of independent competition in the market," the Hutt eventually decided.

"Indeed?" Qui Gon halted in his peregrinations, leaned in until he could smell the worm's foul breath. Jemba craned his massive head backward. "What proof is there of that?"

Jemba considered Clat'Ha for a moment. He spread his hands wide. "We are making a donation… a large grant- enough to cover the current tax period and the next three-"

"I think," Qui Gon corrected him, "That you will use your influence with the Trade Federation to arrange a permanent tax-free status for the Coopertive."

The Hutt hissed, tongue flicking angrily over his lipless mouth. Slime dribbled over his six chins. "Very well."

Clat'Ha beamed. "We'll sign the papers before I release your underlings."

If Jemba had any objections, he did not speak them aloud. Qui Gon watched as the small party lumbered its way into the adjacent room to solidify the deal.

He could leave Bandomeer in good conscience, but he was under no illusion that his mission was over. Indeed, it had barely begun.

* * *

Yan Dooku's critical gaze swept over the Agri-domes and the ungainly sprawl of the Arconan Mineral Harvest headqurters in one elegant dismissive motion, an understated condemnation worthy of a master of Makashi. "Qui Gon," he greeted his former apprentice.

The tall man bowed. "They are on Telos," he said. "I should be able to better pinpoint the location once we are in the system."

Dooku held out an elegant hand, gesturing to the Republic shuttle behind him. "Then let us proceed. An unpleasant task lies ahead; let us not delay any further."

They fell into step, side by side.

"By the way," the older Jedi inquired, feigning solicitous interest, "How did DuCrion manage to abduct the boy under your nose? And why wasn't there more of a struggle?"

They reached the ramp, and halted at its foot. "Obi Wan surrendered himself hoping to spare the Arconan passengers on the freighter from harm, and thinking he would thereby save me from doing the same."

One of Dooku's silvering eyebrows crept upward. "A rash and foolish deed. I declare, Qui Gon, he reminds me of you. You should have forbidden him to interfere in the affair."

The tall man grimaced. "I did."

"And he defied you – for your own good?" With a tsk-ing noise deep in his throat, Dooku led the way into the shuttle's interior. His voice floated down, echoing in the small space within. "He'll never make it to Knighthood alive. But I shan't attempt to dissuade you from adopting your latest lost cause."

Qui Gon strode up the ramp and shut it behind him, his mouth pressed firmly shut.

Telos awaited.


	6. Chapter 6

**Lineage**

* * *

**Part 6: Dilemma**

Obi Wan balled both hands into fists and concentrated on the control panel for the energy barrier. He _knew_ it was just beyond the corner; he had seen the strange visored guards punch a code into it when they'd thrown him in here, presumably to rot. He wasn't interested in subtlety or control – just efficacy. How hard could it be to crush the internal components? He was the best player in his age group at Flying Rocks – tiny circuits hardly measured up against heavy stones in Temple's outdoor gardens.

He concentrated, his belly rumbled and twisted, his aching muscles whined and dragged against his will, begging for rest, and his overburdened mind shredded into unfocused tatters. He simply couldn't do it. His heart hammered against his ribs, demanding nourishment, proclaiming that unless he ate or slept soon, he wouldn't even be able to walk through that door, much less cause the barrier to drop.

He huddled against the wall, resting. He tried to count days – but there were blurry gaps in his memory. And he had not slept since arriving here- determined that he would escape if opportunity arose. He wasn't going to miss his chance because of weakness. Idly, close to despairingly, he tugged at the electrocollar again. It chafed, and the recollection of its numerous uses ignited a hidden spark of rebellion deep within him, enough of a flame to warm his chilled bones.

Anger.

But strength, too. His fingers traced over one or two of the latest bruises and burns from dueling with Bruck, and his flesh rose in fierce goosebumps. Bruck made him angry, too, with his irreverence and cruelty to younger crechelings. Every blow his rival landed hurt, and stirred up that same flame.

Anger. The enemy. The enemy behind every other enemy.

It swelled hot in the Force, cavorted around his feet. He _knew_ he could crush the control panel. There was a single guard lounging in the corridor outside.

He touched the collar again, reminding himself of the pain, and drew a hand across his aching belly, rubbing salt in that wound, too. Power surged and eddied about him, rising higher in a tide, obedient to his beckoning. He remembered the Whiphids, the ones he had _thrown_ across the hallway on board the Monument, the assailants he had repelled with a flick of his wrist, white hot power flooding through his blood like a soundless shout. He _knew_ he could overpower that guard, too.

What else could he do?

_Anything,_ the power whispered. _Just touch me. One caress. One tiny gesture._

He swallowed and shrank back, into the wall of the cell. His belly hurt. He slid down further, hunching into the familiar ball. It was cold, and he had no boots, no cloak, no tunics. He found himself wishing for another brief moment of hope – another fleeting touch of Qui Gon Jinn's presence. But he stopped that thought in its tracks. Selfish. Weak. Stupid.

He was a murderer. The whole point of boarding the Monument in the first place had been to remove himself from the Order, from Qui Gon, from the possible future with its vistas of unmitigated disaster. He shouldn't long for that which he had renounced – such wavering was _completely_ immature.

He sank even further, until he was rolled in a tight and shivering knot on the hard floor. He would _not_ permit himself to sleep. The guard outside would not have the satisfaction of seeing him reduced to such pathetic straits. Bitterly, he asked the Force why it had not sent a _real_ Jedi into this mess. There was no answer. He felt the tears begin to rip and claw their way through his control, and he scowled in disgust at this further evidence of childishness.

To make himself feel better, he cursed under his breath, experimenting with the new words he had garnered for his vocabulary in the spaceport, and especially the Huttese-sounding phrase Qui Gon had accidentally muttered in his presence. The amusement quickly faded, but not before he had consigned DuCrion to a very imaginative fate, richly elaborated by adjectives of questionable propriety and one or two verbs which he was certain would send the crèche masters in the Temple into apoplectic fits of disapproval.

He was still faintly smirking when he finally succumbed to sleep.

* * *

"How tender," the voice of Xanatos DuCrion drawled.

Obi Wan levered himself upright and then stumbled to his feet, facing his enemy squarely – if not quite steadily.

The former Jedi chuckled. "That look could kill," he observed lazily. "But not me." He held up his hand in a curt signal, and two guards hauled a scuffling, protesting prisoner forward, until the open doorframe of the cell was filled with the gangly arms and mournful countenance of a Phindian. This person cast his orange eyes upward at Du Crion and cringed, as though wishing to withdraw into his own flesh.

The door was open. But there were four armed men in the passage, plus DuCrion himself. Obi Wan's shoulders slumped. Even standing upright made his breath come short. He needed to _eat._ Soon. A great deal.

The Phindian was shoved into the space beside him.

"I thought you would like some company," the raven-haired man smiled sourly. "I don't have anything quite as vile as another Jedi, but a Phindian is low as dirt. You can enjoy each other's conversation while you wait for execution."

The long-armed Phindian surveyed his new companion with sorrowful eyes. "But! This is nothing but a child. You cannot be planning to kill him."

Xanatos stepped back over the threshold gracefully, flicking the energy barrier back into existence. "Be careful, Guerra, " he advised. "The boy's a _murderer._ He can snap your neck without even touching you."

The Phindian snorted and waved a long, muscular arm at their captor. "Not so! Superstitious, I am not. Reckless, maybe so. But stupid, not so."

"Believe what you like, my friend. But I've given you fair warning: he's a Jedi, one they kicked out of the Temple on account of his wicked ways. I'd watch my back were I you."

When the cruel laughter had died away down the corridor, the Phindian turned back to his new companion. "So!" he announced cheerfully. "Company is better than loneliness, am I right? And you are not looking like any kind of murderer to me, true fact. Guerra Derrida.. And you?"

The young Jedi studied this stranger cautiously. What cunning manipulation was this? The Force thrummed taut with danger to come… and yet he sensed nothing but affability and sincerity emanating from the pathetic Phindian. He relaxed his battle-ready posture, feeling even more tired than before. "Obi Wan Kenobi," he supplied.

"Obawan," the Phindian repeated, cheerfully. "A fine cozy home you have here. Not so, I lie!"

"So why are you here, Guerra?"

The Phindian shifted his weight against the wall and shrugged. "A genius is always misunderstood. So I am inventing an anti-register, and using it to hack Offworld records."

"For stealing," the young Jedi frowned, severely.

"Not so!" his new acquaintance protested. "Taking money back that somebody else has stolen, this is _un-stealing,_ Obawan."

Unstealing? He had never heard of any such thing, in all his extensive years of education on Coruscant. Guerra Derrida was surely a criminal, though likeable enough. "There is no such thing as _un-stealing,"_ he asserted, primly. "Two wrongs don't make a right."

"What?" The Phindian was unfazed by his moral certainty. "So you are getting thrown in here by force, am I right? And later, you are bashing heads together to escape – so? A good plan?"

Obi Wan nodded, wondering where this was leading.

"So! Two wrongs make a right!"

His head hurt, and his belly hurt, and the entire galaxy was upside down and the Force itself was inside out. "I … no. Well, maybe. From a certain point of view. But _not_ yours. There is still no such thing as _un-stealing."_

Guerra Derrida shrugged and favored him with an indulgent smile. "It's okay, Obawan. You are not so experienced, even for a wee baby Jedi."

"Maybe I'm not a Jedi," he riposted, annoyed by the twists and turns of this conversation.

"Not so!" the irrepressible Phindian chortled. "You lie!"

* * *

"Wake up, little Jedi friend. Visitors coming."

It was harder to climb up out of sleep this time. Obi Wan blinked, squinted through the gloom, tried to make sense of disjointed memory. And why was he leaning against this strange Phindian? He steadied himself against the wall with one hand, waving away the supporting arm offered by his companion.

Xanatos reappeared, bearing a tray laden with food. He grinned at them through the shimmering red wall. The same four guards stood at attention behind him, electrostaves crackling.

"I've brought you some badly needed sustenance," he announced. "Stars… the boy's on the verge of collapse. How the mighty are fallen."

Guerra Derrida moved protectively in front of Obi Wan. "So!" he accused their taunting captor. "Starving a child, lower than low. True fact."

The barrier fell, and the dark-haired man took a malicious step forward. "Let's rectify that lamentable state of affairs, shall we? I have food here for you; all you have to do is beg, and it's yours."

"We're not begging," Obi Wan retorted, shoving past Guerra. "You can take that away!"

"Not so!" the Phindian cut across his objection. "Begging is better than starving, Obawan." In a trice, he was on his knees before Xanatos.

"Face on the floor," the ex-Jedi commanded. "And what's taking you so long, _Padawan?_ I thought humility was a Jedi virtue."

"I'd rather starve," he flung back, vexed by the mutinous trembling in his knees. He straightened his spine, folded his arms across his chest.

Xanatos glanced down at the prostrate form of Guerra Derrida. "Neither of you eats unless both of you cooperate. Are you choosing to let this poor fellow suffer?"

A stone settled in his gut. Breath was squeezed from his lungs. He looked at the merciless, laughing eyes of their tormentor and felt his teeth clench hard together, holding back a torrent of abuse. Xanatos' blue gaze bored into his, until the universe contracted to these two burning orbs and the terrible, incontrovertible defeat they contained, like twin vials of poison.

"Not so bad, Obawan! You are needing food, too. True fact." Guerra's voice was muffled. "And I am hungry enough to die without it, so!"

"Well?" Xanatos sneered. "Are you without compassion, my murderous little spy? Will you let this Phindian perish before your eyes? I assure you, this offer won't be renewed again."

_Hate_ was the only word for the passion swelling in his breast. He tried to regulate his breath, which was ratcheting into a panicked and harsh rhythm. He wanted to scream his defiance and outrage aloud, but he did not. The Force pounded in his veins, black with resentment, alight with a strange calm. He floundered, clung to the splintered flotsam of Light, and closed his eyes.

His knees hit the floor. Rage coiled in his belly. He lowered himself down, hands shaking with anger, breath rasping loud in his throat, chest heaving with rebellion. He touched his forehead to the cold stone, teeth chattering against the urge to _throttle_ this evil, wretched man , to _break_ his spine just as he had smashed the Whiphids against the walls. Xanatos' boot came down between his bare shoulder blades and pressed hard, until he grunted as his ribs hit the unyielding floor.

"_Better."_

Obi Wan did not even notice when DuCrion took his leave. Nor did he any longer have an appetite. He rolled away from Guerra's solicitous pawing and turned his face to the wall.

* * *

He tried to reach Qui Gon again. It was weak and selfish, but he no longer cared. He ached with longing for home, for the Temple, for his friends who had been left behind, for the dust motes swirling in the muted light beams of the indoor gardens, for the rough-and-tumble of saber practice, for Master Yoda's grumbling voice. And a blanket. And food. And most of all, for the serene and immovable incandescence of the Force there, the superfluity of Light in which shadows were impossible to imagine.

He knew he could not go back, ever. But he loathed this place with a nauseating intensity, and the clinging tendrils of Dark were more obnoxious to him than even the heavy collar around his neck or the ulcerous cramping in his belly. And he knew, with a deep instinct, that Qui Gon Jinn was his one thin hope of miraculous escape. However, try as he might, he could no longer forge that invisible connection. He was simply too weak, too exhausted. He closed his eyes and hoped that Guerra Derrida was enjoying his food.

"Obawan. Obawan. You are missing a gourmet feast. Eat soon or nothing will be left for you – not so, I lie! I am saving lots for you, my little friend. So!"

Long arms grasped at his arms and rolled him over onto his back, despite his feeble protestations. The Phindina's sorrowful, drooping orange eyes surveyed him with genuine concern. "Oh," he mourned. "If you don't eat, I will not be enjoying my own food," he sighed. "So! True fact."

Obi Wan sighed and levered himself upright. "I'll eat," he grunted.

"So! A wise decision, Obawan! Worthy of a Jedi!" Guerra set about plying him with food, bread and fruit and some sort of stew, cooling to tepid blandness but still a welcome antidote to his ravenous hunger. He wolfed down every scrap set before him, with an appetite born of desperation. He drank of the cold water until not a drop remained in the carafe.

But it still tasted of defeat.

* * *

"What do they drink on Phindar, Guerra? Do they have a thing like fermis there?"

"Oh, we are having a great many things like that, Obawan, but I am thinking you are too young to be so interested in it. True fact."

"Do you have celebrations of people's life days?"

"So! Good celebrations. Not like this place, so!"

"What about prisons? Do they throw thieves in prison there?"

The Phindian guffawed. "Phindar is a crazy not-so place, Obawan. The prisons are full of all the people who are telling the truth and doing the right thing, and the people doing the throwing-in are bad. No lie."

Obi Wan thought about that. "Why don't you ask for Jedi help, then?"

"So, Obawan, you get us out of this alive, and I will ask for Jedi help. You can come and single handedly fix Phindars' problems." He sighed, a gentle susurration in the blackness of nighttime. "Not so, I lie. We are both going to be killed here, true fact."

"You won't die here if I can help it," he promised.

A hand reached across the space to pat him on the arm. "So! You are a brave one, Obawan, but I think you are over your head in this place."

"I mean it."

The Phindian soothed him, stroking his arm. "So, so! I believe you. Now go to sleep. Much more pleasant things wait in our dreams, yes?"

"Not so. You lie."

They laughed at that, a little, but the sound was mere hollow bravado in the face of surrounding darkness, a brittle last stand against the ominous morrow. Guerra soon fell to snoring, in a hearty baritone reminiscent of distant thunder. Obi Wan stared at the blackness where the ceiling must be and recited the mantra of patience, the mantra of fortitude, and the mantra of tranquility, over and over again, until the counterpoint of Guerra's moist rumblings and his own whispering voice lulled him to uneasy, vision riddled sleep.

* * *

The next morning brought renewed nightmare.

"Are we feeling better?" Xanatos purred, as he slipped through the open cell door into its small confines. There were a phalanx of guards outside, some gripping other prisoners. Obi Wan craned his head to get a better look. There were humans and non-humans, men and women. But no other children.

Guerra Derrida remained sitting, his limpid eyes tracking the tall man's every sinuous move with bottomless resignation and dread.

"It's your day to make another noble gesture, little Jedi. I'm going to permit you to save these people's lives."

Obi Wan tensed, as the Force seemed to freeze into clawing ice about the base of his spine. He swallowed and squinted through eth gloom at the struggling prisoners held in the guards' unremitting grasp. "What do you mean?"

Xanaots smiled, though there was no softness in it. "These traitors are scheduled for execution. I shall carry out that sentence right here in front of you, unless you do as I say."

He braced himself. He could beg again, if he had to. A Jedi served. He protected the innocent, and it was a fairly certain truth that this villains' so called "traitors" must be innocents.

The ex-Jedi walked in a slow circle around Guerra, squatting forlornly on the hard floor, his long arms trailing on the dusty stone. "You are a born killer. I want you to kill Guerra here. He has earned it; and by his death, you can save six others."

Obi Wan looked at Guerra, who refused to meet his gaze. He tried to speak, but a hard lump of rage constricted his throat. Swallowing it down, he closed his hands into tight fists and drew as close to Xanatos as he dared. "I will not, and you know it."

"Really?" The dark-haired man signaled the guards to drag in the first of his prisoners, a grey haired man whose face was carved in lines of determination, emotionless acceptance. "So you prefer to watch than to act." He flicked his wrist, and the man careened into the near wall, with a sickening crack. The body slumped into an awkward sprawl , and a small dark stain graced the uneven surface of the wall.

Obi Wan's heart skipped a beat, and then he was on top of Xanatos, sick rage exploding into a flurry of attacks. The taller man laughingly met his assault, blocking the blows, grappling with him as easily as a serpent lashes through a clumsy pack of nekk dogs, finally managing to twist his assailant's arm into a painful lock. He bore down, until the boy was kneeling in front of him, and tossed a small device into Guerra Derrida's lap.

Obi Wan held out a hand to call it to himself with the Force, but Xanatos pressed down harder, until crimson fire erupted in his shoulder socket and his vison swam.

"Stop!" he heard the Phindian cry.

"I'll give you the hard choice, Derrida," Xanatos declared. "You decide how badly our little friend here needs to be punished, or _I_ will. "

The Phindian held the transmitter to the electrocollar between two long fingers, as though it were a repulsive insect. Xanatos twisted a bit harder, until something popped and the young Jedi gasped and whimpered despite his resolve.

"No!" Guerra moaned. "Stop hurting the child! I am not watching that any longer!"

"You _teach_ him a lesson, or I'll break every joint in his body one by one," DuCrion hissed. "Show him how a _merciful_ person behaves, Derrida."

The distraught Phindian clutched his head, his face swaying back and forth in tormented indecision. "Sorry, Obawan, so sorry," he groaned, and – mouth twisting in repugnance – he pressed the control.

Xanatos dropped the boy to the ground and stood impassively as the punishment was exacted. When he was satisfied, he called the control unit back into his own hand, and sent the snickering guards back to their duties. Two dragged the pitiful corpse away down the passage, and the others hustled the remaining prisoners to their keeping-places.

"We will repeat this exercise at sunset," the fallen man promised, as he swept out the door and closed the shimmering barrier. "Enjoy your last hours of existence, Derrida."

* * *

"Dislocated, that is, Obawan. Easy now."

"Leave me alone," Obi Wan snarled, scooting further back into the hard wall. Pain spread in a throbbing tide throughout his body, radiating from his shoulder to his spine and legs, arms, fingers, neck, jaw. Release, release, release… it wasn't working, and all he could think of was the lifeless face of the man Xanaots DuCrion had _murdered_ in cold blood.

"So!" the gentle Guerra agreed. "Angry you can be with me. I hurt you, so, but only for your own good. True fact."

Pain, pain, pain. "I'm not _angry!" _ he hollered, his voice cracking shamefully. Hunger, cold, pain, hunger. And a slumped and broken body, the dark stain still on the wall behind.

"Not so, you lie," Guerra muttered, and honored his companion's wishes by withdrawing to the far corner, his face turned away.

Guerra was sad and scared. Pain. Guerra's fear. Guerra's sorrow and loneliness. Why did the Phindian have to be so overwhelmingly emotional? Pain. Obi Wan gritted his teeth and pressed into the wall, scrabbling for the Force in this tiny chamber clotted with the _Phindian – _the _blasted hell-forsaken pizmah son of a vetch Phindian –_ and his lonely, sad, frightened despair. It was so omnipresent that it got mixed up with his own thoughts and feelings and then…

And then, wihtout warning or preamble, he was bawling, long silent keening wails, guttural soundless cries whelming up from a hidden and primal root. He sobbed and longed for something he could not name, or remember, or imagine. Had he not been raised in the serenity of the Temple since infancy, he might have had a concept to give solidity to the indistinct yearning: _mother, _ or _father, _perhaps.

But he was Jedi, and innocent of such complexities. And the Force kept gentle vigil, and Guerra Derrida watched in mute and wary sympathy. And the day dragged on toward inevitable sunset, and the next time of trial.

* * *

"I need not explain it to you this time, I trust," Xanatos growled sardonically.

Behind him, the guards each held a blaster to the head of a shackled and kneeling prisoner. The Force was a turgid sea of death and numbing fear. Obi Wan could barely breathe through it.

"Kill me, Obawan, so!" Guerra muttered, his head miserably resting in his broad hands. He hunched in a corner of the cell. "No winning is there for us. True fact. Just make it quick, little Jedi friend."

"No."

"No?" Du Crion repeated, eyes narrowing. He snapped his fingers, and instantly the first of the prisoners crumpled forward, the blaster's retort muffled by skull and soft tissue. The lingering scent turned Obi Wan's stomach. He felt acid rise in his throat.

"No!" He was on his feet, perspiration slicking his palms. No, no, no,no,no.

"Kill the Phindian, or we will continue with the executions. And I have others who deserve the same fate. I thought a Jedi would be able to choose the lesser evil, or the greater good? Doesn't it all come down to the same thing in the end?"

No. No. No. Denial measured his pulse into erratic shouts, wrung all warmth from his lungs.

"How many murders will you commit today?" Xanatos continued. "Five? Ten? Fifteen? I'm appalled by your heartlessness. Now show me some real courage and end this. The _Phindian_. Now."

Obi Wan knelt. He bowed his head. "No, please. I beg you. I…I humble myself before you. You can kill me instead of them. I'll give myself in their place. Anything."

DuCrion leaned down and seized his chin. "Anything? I told you what I want. The Phindian. Dead. Now. Or _all_ these people die."

"I can't!"

"You can… you've done it before. You have the power, and plenty besides."

"_Please!_"

With an exasperated snort, the dark –haired man signaled a second time, and another corpse fell heavily to the floor. Obi Wan doubled over, retching.

"Obawan!" Guerra pleaded.

"_NO!"_ Power rushed into him, all-consuming, a dark wrath that erased the pain in his shoulder, that clawed down his spine in melting cascades of pleasure. _Power._ _Anger. _He looked up at the bent and wicked murdered looming over him and knew that he could annihilate the man in this instant. He saw blood spattering on the ebony stones, bones shattering beneath bruised flesh, lungs collapsed into crumpled sacs, ruinous messes of ooze and gore.

Xanaots DuCrion's eyes widened. He stepped back, lip curling, one hand reaching for a weapon concealed beneath his cloak's folds.

Obi Wan screamed in horror and writhed away, out of the shadows' grasp, away form the clutching Dark, shaking with a strange fever, panting loudly.

The tall man relaxed. His face hardened. "Kill the rest," he ordered, and the guards obeyed. "You can choose Light if you wish, little one, but you will _always_ be a killer. You have only chosen who and how many will die for your precious ideals. Rest well in that knowledge. We will _discuss _it again soon."

* * *

A long time after their captor had departed, Obi Wan regained awareness of Guerra Derrida crouched beside him, his long arms curled consolingly about his one good shoulder. His head was nestled against the Phindian's chest, and a hand patted rhythmically on his back, a hollow drumming against his bruised ribs.

"Maybe dying would be better, so," Guerra soothed him.

He hiccupped, finding this scant encouragement. "You have a way with words, Guerra."

"Not so! You are the one who makes people angry with only one. A diplomat, Obawan, you are not born to be. True fact."

"I'm offended."

"So! Offended, I like you better than angry."

He stirred, but the Phindian would not loosen his smothering embrace. "Guerra.. I'm sorry. I should not have shouted at you earlier.. I wasn't.. I didn't.."

"Not so, friend. No apology needed."

There was nothing more to say, so they said nothing more. Eventually, the blackness of night crept over them and blocked out all light but the barrier's bleeding crimson glare. In that dim and baleful glow, the night plodded on, bow-backed beneath the weight of remorse and dread. The Phindian eventually drifted into a sleep disturbed by fretful mutterings, while Obi Wan lay rigid and awake, half-sick with pain, and certain that should he dream, he would only see more atrocities committed in his name.


	7. Chapter 7

**Lineage**

* * *

**Part 7: Encounter**

Telos was covered in sickly cloud cover, blankets and veils drawn over its northern hemisphere, aglow with dying sunlight near the terminator between night and day.

"Crion had a prison facility in the mountain range in quadrant three. I recall it distinctly. That's where Xanatos is holding the boy." He remembered the tower well, and the jagged cliffs in which it was built, so that escape was humanly possible only with an airccraft or spacecraft. The disjointed image in Obi Wan's memory had been a caricatured portrait of this place.

Dooku guided the ship straight through the ominous gloom, skirting the crags and peaks of the high ridge separating the continet's halves. It did not take them long to find the colossal prison fortress, or to land on the one rooftop docking platform.

A host of armed guards greeted them upon their arrival. But even twenty Teloisans, elite detail or not, were no match for two Jedi masters.

* * *

"Pathetic," Dooku remarked five minutes later as they made their way into the upper levels. "He should have invested in some decent droid security forces ages ago. The Trade Federation relies almost exclusively upon them now; and Telos is one of the few worlds affluent enough to afford the Techno Union's exorbitant prices."

A pair of officers accosted them at the first pair of inner doors. "Intruders!" one shouted.

Qui Gon took charge. "We are not intruders," he informed the Telosian.

"You are not intruders."

The man's companion stared slack-jawed at the newcomers. "We are here to meet Governor DuCrion. You will take us to him," Dooku added, placidly.

"We will take you to see him," the second man intoned.

* * *

The prison's bowels were labyrinthine. As they progressed, a tremor of warning thrilled deep in the Force, building to a crescendo, a wailing note of distress. Qui Gon lengthened his stride, recognizing ObI Wan's signature within the blended chords of disharmony.

"Patience," Dooku chided, raising one silver eyebrow.

They turned one last corner. "Return to your duties," they told the near-witless victims of double mind-control, who shuffled away in a stupor.

Qui Gon gripped his saber's hilt. Xanatos' presence flared bright and distorted in the Force, a madhouse twisting of his former self, a negative image almost, shadow-wreathed. Behind it, contorted in an agony of frustration and dread, Obi Wans' spirit burned, a tiny flame buffeted by dark winds.

"Xanatos DuCrion!" Dooku called out, striding down the corridor.

A group of guards, holding other prisoners hostage at blaster-point, was arranged in a strange vignette, clustered around the entrance to a cell door set in the far wall. Xanatos stood, as though addressing the occupant. At the sound of Dooku's voice, the fallen Jedi turned on his heel, sneering. His hand raised and fell in a casual gesture, and the six prisoners fell forward, slumping before the threshold to the cell in a grotesque synchrony. A howl of wretched despair rent the Force, bled an invisible crimson pool of regret into its subtle currents.

"Master _Dooku,"_ the arrogant young man greeted his visitor. "I am flattered." His hand went to the saber tucked in his belt.

"You no longer have the right to bear that weapon," Dooku observed, flicking his own curve-handled weapon into bright life. Green shadows danced ghoulishly on the slick walls. The guards behind Xanatos leveled blasters at the Jedi. Qui Gon's saber came up in defensive position. The years spent fighting at Dooku's side as a Padawan were not wasted; even now, decades later, they fell into flawless rhythm, two creatures melded into one.

"Have you come to fetch your Padawan, Master Jinn?" Xanatos laughed. "You can have him – he didn't do a very fine job of spying on me, unlike your other Shadows."

Dooku advanced, casually. "The previous reports did not accurately portray the depth of your foolishness," he replied. "Did you think the Order would simply abandon the boy?"

"Why not?" DuCrion shrugged, with a significant glance over Dooku's shoulder at Qui Gon. "The Order has abandoned decency, and its own principles. Why not a boy as well?"

"You are beneath contempt," Dooku sighed, sweeping his blade in the long, elegant opening flourish of Makashi. Xanaots replied in kind, his lips drawing back in a death's mask grin of pleasure.

"Your way is old and dying," he hissed. "Your light will soon be gone from the universe, never to return. You should embrace the coming Darkness, as I have."

"Qui Gon," Dooku instructed, with a calm detachment bordering on indifference, "Get the boy and take the shuttle. I shall deal with our…ah.. friend here personally, and find my own way back."

The curt order might have galled him, on another occasion, in another time, but Qui Gon had no energy to spare on the established routines of dissonance between himself and his former master. He moved toward the cell door as Dooku drew his dueling partner away down the corridor, toying with him as easily as a felix torments and plays with its rodent prey. Qui Gon's stomach turned – but there was no time to focus on it. Soon he was in close combat with all six guards.

The contest did not last long.

* * *

Qui Gon stepped over the blaster-riddled corpses, releasing his shock and revulsion into the Force. It was too late to help these poor people now; and he had other duties which would not wait.

Faintly, the screech and buzz of saber blades clashing was carried to him down the hallway. He could feel Dooku's contempt rising like an axe blade, a heavy retribution waiting to fall. He swallowed. Crouched in the dank confines of the cell was Obi Wan, curled in a miserable ball upon the hard floor, shoulders shaking. In the far croner a Phindian crouched, wide mouth gaping and orange eyes staring fearfully at the newcomer.

"Obi Wan."

The boy looked up at him through red-rimmed eyes and then just as swiftly looked away, shame and self-loathing bleeding out of him in waves, filling the tiny space.

Qui Gon dropped to one knee, spread his fingerips on the cold stone flagging. He waited.

"Master Jinn," the top of the boy's head haltingly addressed him. "You should just leave me."

"That's a coward's statement," Qui Gon answered, quietly. "I won't accept it."

Obi Wan's head jerked up, outrage tinging his white face with splotching color. "What?"

Qui Gon fixed him with a stern look. "I think what you _mean_ to communicate, rather than this childish show of self-pity, is an apology for disobedience."

The boy's jaw dropped a little, and a pair of blue eyes burned into his, affront sparking in their depths. "I – I didn't!" He uncurled, knelt before Qui Gon, trembling with shock or emotion.

"That's not true."

"I promised not to-"

"You made a deliberately ambiguous promise with intent to deceive me."

"It was to prevent you from –"

"_You, _ youngling, are not charged with my protection and safety. In fact, your interference showed grave disrespect for my authority as a Jedi. You should have known better."

Obi Wan visibly deflated. His eyebrows beetled together, hard, but the tears came anyway. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "It was wrong, master. I'm sorry."

The Jedi master exhaled, glanced sideways at the Phindian watching this exchange from his vantage point in the corner. Mournful orange eyes met his, and a small nod of greeting was offered him. He nodded his head and returned his attention to the boy.

"_Now_ you should leave me," Obi Wan decided.

"From your point of view, perhaps, but I thought we just established that you are not the one in charge here."

Obi Wan stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Up. On your feet," Qui Gon ordered briskly. A Jedi must rely on the Force and strength of will; this lesson was taught early. He did hover – a bit- in case the boy's knees gave way. But in a moment, they were facing each other on their feet, Qui Gon looking a long way down and Obi Wan looking a long way up, wavering only slightly.

The tall Jedi lightly grasped the electrocollar in his hands, and called on the Force. The device split in half and clattered to the floor. He shrugged out of his cloak and wrapped its voluminous folds around the boy's shoulders. It fell in heavy drapes and pooled on the ground, but Obi Wan gratefully pulled the fabric close about his body, using only his right hand.

"What happened?" Qui Gon demanded, touching the left arm.

The boy hung his head. "It's dislocated. I tried to fight him. It hurts."

"We'll deal with that in the ship, just before we discuss the consequences of your insubordination."

Obi Wan didn't protest. His eyes widened a trifle, and then he dipped his head and stared at the floor, where his bare toes peeked out beneath the crumpled hem of Qui Gon's cloak. "Um… yes, master," he mumbled at length.

"Let us go, then."

But the boy hesitated still. "…Master?"

He paused, halfway over the threshold.

"We are taking Guerra with us, aren't we?"

* * *

It was a long way back to the shuttle. Qui Gon led the other two, his heart pounding in his chest. Strike, parry; attack, counterattack; block, bind, lunge, strike, disengage.

Dooku was not amused. Nor was he making a swift end of things. He was teaching a _lesson._

Xanatos.

"Master Jinn?"

"Keep going, Obi Wan. We're nearly there." He did not wish to speak about it now. Strike, counterstrike. Riposte, lunge, evade, strike, block. He already knew how it would end. Had Dooku moved the duel away from him on purpose, to spare him?

Did Dooku really care that much about his feelings? He snorted.

"Almost there, little Jedi friend. No lie!"

Qui Gon turned, supported the struggling boy himself. "I'm sorry, Obi Wan. Just a little further. "

"I'm fine, master," the boy insisted, as his knees buckled beneath him.

He swept the shuddering child into his own arms and hurried. He wished to leave before the duel came to its inevitable conclusion. Sloppy block, inelegant dodge, a tenuous bind. Dooku was humiliating Xanatos, drawing out the defeat into agonizing increments. He walked faster.

"So! A pretty ship, I think, true fact!" Guerra was already hurrying up the ramp when Qui Gon felt it. Obi Wan yelled at the same moment he did, the two of them bound in this same close-knit bloodline, this same lineage in the Force, the pain of Dooku's strikes echoing down the generations in ghostly testament: a burn across the arm, across the ribs, through the thigh.

Qui Gon stumbled and recovered. Obi Wan struggled free and tottered against the inner bulkhead, gasping. Dooku's grim satisfaction washed over them like the ebbing of a cold tide.

"Let's go," Qui Gon grunted. Now. Now. Xanatos was no longer his concern. He had another one, in the present moment.

* * *

The shuttle had only a single inset bunk.

"Stay there," Qui Gon ordered, raising one admonitory finger. "Stay."

Guerra Derrida had settled in the cockpit, and displayed an uncanny talent for piloting; the ship's systems were online and the drives warming by the time the Jedi master entered. "I have some experience, so!" the Phindian grinned. "My brother Paxi and I have un-stolen more ships than you can count, Jedi-Gon."

"Is that so?" he replied, toggling the comm relay for a signal.

"Yes, so! It's a way of life on Phindar, no lie."

"I see." Dooku did not respond to his signal. He frowned. By any reasonable accounting, he should care not at all what fate befell Xanatos DuCrion. A man fallen to the Dark was dead, either way. But his heart still ached.

"You are not horrified by un-stealing, Jedi Gon? Obawan lectured me terribly on its wrongness. A sharp tongue that boy has, true fact."

"He has much to learn," Qui Gon replied, distractedly.

"To be gone from this place, I will be sorry," Guerra moaned, lifting the shuttle onto repulsors and guiding them into the clear Telosian sky. "Not so, I lie!"

Qui Gon couldn't have agreed more.

* * *

When they were clear of the system, he returned to the rear compartment.

"Where are we?" Obi Wan wanted to know. "Are we going to Bandomeer now?"

Qui Gon perched on the edge of the bunk. "We are, strictly speaking, nowhere. In hyperspace. And no, we are not going to Bandomeer."

The boy shifted a little , still wrapped in Qui Gon's brown cloak. "I was going to Bandomeer," he explained politely.

"Not anymore, you're not. Let me see that shoulder." He gently tugged the folds of cloth free, examined the damaged joint. His mouth thinned. "You would make a terrible farmer, Obi Wan."

"I could be a farmer!" the boy objected. "I'm good at biology. Master Pertha-"

"Master Pertha is a malign influence on the Temple's youth," Qui Gon informed him. "Hold still a moment." He extended a questing tendril of the Force through the swollen limb, gentle healing energies coiling about ligaments and muscles, soothing. "And you haven't the patience to be a farmer."

"I can be patient!" Obi Wan insisted. "Ow."

"I'm sorry." He studied the injury, regretting what must come next before it had even happened. "What would you do if your crops failed, hm? Say… your tuber crop is blighted by Devaronian locusts? You would be the only farmer in the galaxy who would offer himself to the locusts in exchange for the lives of your tubers. Very noble, very self-sacrificing, and completely foolish." He held the arm carefully, positioned it at the proper angle.

Obi Wan relaxed into the touch, smiling at the jest. Humor flittered through his pain and exhaustion and sorrow like a glowmoth dancing in the deepest of caves, a thing luminous in its own right, inextinguishable, elusive and teasing at once. His mouth twisted in a lopsided smile, and dimples appeared in his cheeks. But a moment later, the fluttering spark was extinguished n a new tide of grief. The smile faded, and pain took its place, seeming to squeeze words out of some hidden recess where they had been festering, awaiting release.

"I tried !" the boy choked out. "I did, master. I.. I offered to let him kill me instead. But he wouldn't. He didn't care. And he killed them anyway and I couldn't stop him and, and he brought more..and…"

Qui Gon laid a hand on his forehead, smoothed over his ruffled thoughts with the Force, poured radiant calm through their bond. "Never mind," he soothed. "Not now. We'll talk about it later."

The boy turned his face to the wall, but there was more shame than defiance in the gesture.

" I need to fix this shoulder, Obi Wan. Do you trust me to do that?"

He could feel the answer, a quiet but trusting _yes_ echoing in the Force, so he did it quickly, without the torment of any warning, popping the joint back into its socket in one deft motion. Obi Wan cried out and used a _very_ colorful Huttese phrase to express his sharp displeasure.

Qui Gon had a sinking feeling that he had taught the expletive to the boy himself. "Now sleep," he commanded, reinforcing the mandate with a generous degree of Force compulsion, and then sighed in relief when his words had the desired effect.

* * *

"I do not lie, Jedi Gon. All those things he said to the boy, and killed all those people too. Harsh for a child to face, true fact."

Qui Gon exhaled carefully, letting the pain ebb away, into the Force. Double edged, a fratricidal knife, Xanatos' cruelty cut both ways, made him mourn for the man that was lost and the child he had harmed. But that had been the whole point, had it not? _Revenge, his motive is. On you, his resentment centers still. _

"I owe him my life, so! That is a debt never to be repaid. True Jedi is Obawan."

_Yes, if only he will admit to it. _"And you are a true friend, Guerra. We both owe you much. If there is any service the Jedi can render you, do not hesitate to ask."

The Phindian sighed. "A nice place, my homeworld is," he said wistfully. "No help needed there ever. Not so, I lie!"

"I have heard rumor of the troubles on your world," Qui Gon replied. "When we arrive on Coruscant, I will leave you with the Phindian consulate. Perhaps together you can petition the Senate to ask for Jedi intervention."

Guerra shrugged, "An idea worth trying, so," he agreed. "What about my little friend?" He jerked on long thumb in the direction of the rear compartment.

"I'll take care of him," Qui Gon promised. "He is my responsibility."

"So? A fine job you have been doing so far, Jedi Gon. Not so, I lie! Better work harder at keeping him out of trouble, friend. True fact."

The Jedi master spared him a rueful smile. "True fact."

* * *

Guerra Derrida seemed more than content to handle the piloting, so Qui Gon left him to it, allowing his mind to drift in the placidity of the Living Force, sinking his anxieties – about Obi Wan, about Xanatos, about the future – into its vivifying depths. He did not stir until vibrant nightmare images shattered the tranquility with acute horror, dissolving his peace into bright concern.

He woke the boy up, and meditated with him, kneeling side by side on the narrow deck in the passenger compartment. It was resoundingly _right,_ to have a young spirit sheltered beneath his wing, the two of them soaring in the Force together, like a thranctill hawk and its hatchling, wheeling in the currents of some high heaven, beneath a beneficent sun. Though space was cold, within the motionless dance of their shared contemplation it was warm, warm and joyfully alive.

It was almost a disappointment to return to the outward and sensory; but Obi Wan could not maintain his focus any longer, even with Qui Gon 's help, and soon enough they were simply sitting in companionable silence, contemplating nothing more profound than the opposite bulkhead.

"I'm hungry," Obi Wan announced, with the direct simplicity of childhood.

The gritty paste mixed of standard shipboard rations and an emergency nutrition pellet from Qui Gon's belt pouch was not the most appetizing of gruels, but the young Jedi applied himself assiduously to the task of eating it, and a second helping as well. When he had finished, he set the empty bowl aside with a very dry expression.

"I would not make a good farmer," he said. "And you would not make a good chef."

Apparently the wilted humor needed only a subtle boost to be revived. Qui Gon smiled. "A good diplomat, Obi Wan, always makes an effort to veil his ingratitude with polite evasion or euphemism."

The boy nodded gravely. "Yes master – and I _did."_

Qui Gon chose to disguise his amusement with a stern look which had no effect whatsoever. Obi Wan merely gazed blandly back at him, huddled in the oversized cloak, his short hair mashed into an extraordinary riot of upright tufts and spikes. In fact, he looked so much like the thranctill hatchling Qui Gon had imagined earlier that the tall man broke into a hearty chuckle.

The boy squinted dourly as the image translated across their bond.

"I am _not_ fluffy," he grumbled, with as much manful dignity as a person of his age and rather compromised position could muster. "Nor am I _adorable."_

"Oh, I agree," Qui Gon conceded, amicably. "In the latter case, appearances are indeed very deceiving. Come, let us see if Guerra would like some relief. I'll show you around the cockpit."

* * *

The Phindian snored loudly; and Obi Wan took only a cursory interest in the workings of the shuttles' forward controls. He claimed not to be particularly fond of machines or flying, contrary to Qui Gon's experience with every other adolescent boy under the galaxy's ten thousand suns.

"Flying is for droids," was his dismissive pronouncement.

Qui Gon folded his arms. "Let me guess: you still read Chakora Seva's philosophical tractates for pleasure."

"I left my datapad on board the _Monument."_ Obi Wan replied mournfully, which the Jedi master took as confirmation of his niggling suspicion.

"Here." He pulled up a text on his own small reader and handed the device to his young companion. "Try this." He watched the boy frown over the first few paragraphs, wide blue eyes flicking up to glance at him once or twice to be sure he was quite serious before settling in for a good, long read. Troon Palo would have been appalled to find one of his clan members avidly perusing a slightly off-color political satire, but Troon wasn't here - and besides, what harm was there in broadened horizons?

* * *

"Master?"

A long hyperspace journey provided ample opportunity for introspection, and no place to escape unwanted conversation. It was with some trepidation that Qui Gon replied. "Yes?"

"DuCrion. He knew you."

"I'm sorry to say that is true," the Jedi master answered. He would not lie, not to Obi Wan, not now.

"He… was he a Jedi, once?"

The memory left scorching trails. "Yes," he sighed.

"But he left. He… he Turned."

The Jedi master closed his eyes. "He left, at first. He discovered that he had been born to a very wealthy, very powerful family, and that he would be welcomed back as heir apparent to those things. He chose money and influence over serving the Force."

Obi Wan studied him, soberly. "He was Dark."

There was no denying it. "Yes," Qui Gon sighed. "He has Turned. The man that he used to be no longer exists. In the truest sense, Obi Wan, he is dead. The man you met is another being entirely – a puppet of the Dark Side."

The boy looked a bit peaked. "But he knew you before."

He owed Obi Wan the truth, the damned and damning truth. "Yes. There was a Jedi named Xanatos DuCrion. He was very talented, a promising Padawan, very skilled with the 'saber, diligent, respected by his peers. When he was nearly ready for the Trials, his master took him to his homeworld, fully aware of the temptation this would pose. While there, the two Jedi discovered that the current ruler – Xanatos' biological father – had become a cruel and maniacal tyrant. The Jedi master was called upon by the people of the planet to intervene, in the name of the Republic. He asked his Padawan to assist him in overthrowing the corrupt ruler, but…"

"Xanatos stood with his father instead."

Qui Gon bowed his head. "Yes. Even to the point of defending the tyrant with his saber, against his master. The fight ended in Crion, the father's, death. Xanatos was disarmed, wounded, and scarred. You likely saw the tiny crescent on his cheek."

Obi Wan looked through him. "He was _your_ Padawan."

"He was."

The boy drew his knees up and looked past him again, scowling through the viewport to the sickening spirals of hyperspace. "Your student Turned."

What reply could possibly alleviate the stark condemnation of those words? "He has."

There was a long silence. Qui Gon could not tell whether the boy was disgusted, or horrified, or disillusioned, or a combination of these things. His thoughts were entrenched behind adamantine shields, unconsciously erected against the man who had been the root and cause of the evils he had just suffered. Perhaps the young Jedi was angry, too, or suspicious that Qui Gon was somehow tainted with the same fatal disposition toward Darkness.

But when Obi Wan finally spoke again, he was none of these things. "I'm truly sorry," he said, with gentle and compassionate sincerity.

And Qui Gon knew that the Force had granted him a blessing he did not deserve.

* * *

They said farewell to Guerra on the landing pad outside the Legislative District's consular offices. Air traffic wove a frenetic web around them, a thrumming that nearly drowned out their words. A hovertaxi waited to take the Phindian on his self-appointed errand as ambassador for his troubled people.

"Grateful, I will always be to you, Obawan, for not killing me in that place, so!" he declared. "You will be counted among my friends, always, true fact!"

"Good luck, Guerra," the young Jedi smiled. "If the Council sends a Jedi to help your people, I hope it will be Master Qui Gon."

"And you also!" the Phindian beamed.

Obi Wan looked troubled. Qui Gon intervened smoothly. "One step at a time, my friend. The consul and you have a steep hill to climb; the Senate can be a nightmare to navigate. Perhaps you can find the courage to pay a call at the Temple; I might be able to connect you with one or two useful people," – Tahl would know whom among the legislators was most suggestible, what pawns or minions to manipulate- "And I'm sure Obi Wan here will appreciate a visit. The healers are bound to bore him to tears."

The young Jedi started. "Master!" he exclaimed in dismay. "You didn't say anything about _the healers!"_

Qui Gon ignored this. "May the Force be with you, Guerra."

"I hope never to see you again…. not so, I lie!" The Phinidian trapped them both in a prolonged and stifling embrace, a feat made possible by his outlandishly lengthy arms, and released them when their breath had been fairly knocked clean out.

Qui Gon bowed; Obi Wan rubbed at his side. "Farewell, Guerra."

When the air transport bearing their eccentric acquaintance had departed into Coruscant's bustling skies, Qui Gon turned his attention to his young companion. "Are you ready to go back to the Temple?"

"With respect, master, I _left_ the Temple." Obi Wan studied the heavy duracrete below their feet.

"You mean you _ran away,"_ the tall man corrected him.

That earned him renewed eye contact, a look full of flashing indignation. "I accepted an assignment from the _Council,_ master."

"You may have had the Council's permission, but you didn't have _mine."_ A salute; let the duel begin.

"What?" the boy almost spluttered, but he was agile on his feet, in every way. "I'm not under your authority," he countered , swiftly, evading the first strike and circling warily.

"Really? Tell me this: why did you refuse Mixo Asaro's offer of apprenticeship three times consecutively?"

"I don't want to talk about that," Obi Wan answered, parrying the thrust with a short, aggressive sweep of his hand.

"Running away again." Qui Gon drove past his clumsy defense.

"I wasn't the one who disappeared for two years!" The counterattack was hot and furious.

Block. "A Jedi is patient, Obi Wan. That is no excuse for rash action."

"I would hardly describe joining Agri-Corps as a brash and foolhardy act." The boy was adding sarcasm into his style now, an elegant variation on the pure form. And aggravating, too. Still, Qui Gon was determined not to be provoked.

"Yet you seem to have transformed it into such."

"From your point of view." Obi Wan's chin was up; the disrespect was delivered with brassy confidence.

"Need I remind you that my point of view rests on superior experience? I am nearly four times your age, youngling."

"Age does not guarantee authority."

"But your sharp tongue does guarantee discipline, young one."

"Send me to the Ag-Corps, then." The cocked eyebrow was just _so,_ intolerably smug.

Very well, he _would _ be provoked. "_Enough, _Padawan!"

Silence. The reprimand was terse, and rife with authority. But more than this, the word brought Obi Wan to a standstill, his mouth snapping shut of its own accord and his cheeks flushing a deep crimson. He looked at Qui Gon pleadingly, fire and fury melting into exhaustion again, into a defeat that he would not let himself concede.

Qui Gon placed two hands on the boy's shoulders. "The Council can decide your fate. That should be enough for you. Now get on board." With that, he turned his still unwiling Padawan around and marched him – gently, but firmly – up the ramp of the shuttle.

The Temple was a short distance away; but they still had a long distance to go.


	8. Chapter 8

**Lineage**

* * *

**Part 8: A Beginning**

Master BenTo Li stroked his thin beard pensively. "Technically, I can't tell you anything. Information like that is only released to a master or the crèche director. We do observe _privacy_, Qui Gon."

The tall man shifted in exasperation. "I see."

The healer squinted sideways at him. "You see another regulation you'd like to flout," he observed trenchantly. "It's a matter of principle. For both of us."

Qui Gon sighed. "Will you release him back to Troon's clan?"

BenTo made a face. "No. I don't think that would be a good idea… he's likely to disturb the younger crechelings, with the nightmares and the general post-tramautic symptoms. The younglings are _very_ attuned to one another's moods, of course, and they haven't the experience to always interpret such things aright, nor to deal well with them. On the other hand, your boy's going to drive my staff up a wall if I keep him here. It's a dilemma."

"My boy?"

"Did I say that?" BenTo asked, slyly. "A slip of the tongue. Ideally, we would find a resident master willing to sponsor him for a few days, or weeks, until he can return to duty. I understand he's stationed on Bandomeer with the Ag-Corps?"

"Misinformation," Qui Gon replied. "He's entering an apprenticeship as soon as the Council approves it."

"Really?" Master Li's bushy eyebrows twitched upward. "That's not what he told me."

"He's a handful, BenTo. You had better find a proper guardian soon."

The healer snorted. "I think I have. Please, my friend, show compassion and take the boy off my hands."

Qui Gon bowed deeply. "I am here to serve."

* * *

The corridors were not crowded at this time of morning. Obi Wan followed sedately in the tall man's footsteps until Qui Gon finally came to a stop and gestured him forward. "Here," the Jedi master said, steering him into position beside him. "I need you where I can keep an eye on you."

They traversed the familiar halls, wending their way toward the residents' quarters, making a brief detour to pick up more holobooks in the Archives.

"More on Vetruvia?" the assistant archivist enquired politely, recognizing Obi Wan at once. She cast Qui Gon a curious glance, wide elliptical eyes brimming with curiosity, but of course she asked nothing. Temple culture valued circumspection above all else.

"No," the young Jedi replied, disappearing into one of the towering library aisles. "Phindar, I think. And some other things." He returned in a few minutes with a hefty stack of glowing volumes.

Qui Gon lifted the topmost and raised on eyebrow at the title. "Historical Battle of Khuat'ar? With detailed analysis of strategic keypoints? What would Master Li say?"

"Master Li thinks the indigenous tribes would have conquered had they not deployed forces into the swamps regions during the second territorial skirmish. _I _ think it hardly matters, because the invasion army had already occupied their only habitable moon by that time, and would have besieged the capitol shipping lanes anyway."

"So you're going to do research to prove him wrong?"

Obi Wan's eyes widened innocently. "To find out the truth."

"It isn't always to be found in books," Qui Gon pointed out mildly as they exited the solemn repository of learning.

"If I can't convince him through rational argument, then I'll have to _inspire _ him instead," the boy informed him, mouth quirking upward at the corners.

"You are supposed to be resting, not picking fights with Master Li," Qui Gon gently chided. "And it is my onerous task to enforce that recommendation. Just a little further. My quarters are on the next level."

* * *

But fights had a way of finding Obi Wan, whether he sought them out or not. As they exited the turbolift on the fifth level east mezzanine, they came face to face with Bruck Chun. Qui Gon swept past with only the barest of nods, but his young counterpart hesitated.

Chun's pale eyes narrowed. "Back so soon?" he murmured, in a low and dangerous tone. "Too high and mighty for Ag-Corps, Kenobi?"

Obi Wan excused himself, but the other boy subtly blocked his path. "So," he continued, gaze flicking to the Jedi master waiting a few paces distant, "How does it feel to be taking the lecture instead of delivering it?"

The two boys locked eyes.

"I can still _deliver,_ Chun."

"Tonight, after curfew," the tow-headed challenger hissed.

But Obi Wan adroitly sidestepped him, with a half bow of dismissal. "I don't think so."

"Coward," the other shot after him, but the remark was received with a half-shrug of indifference and nothing more. Obi Wan rejoined Qui Gon, and they headed down the passageway together.

* * *

Tahl called the next morning.

"I hear you've adopted another pathetic life form." She entered without invitation, setting the Force alight with lovely radiance. Qui Gon poured her tea without asking.

"He terrorized BenTo and the healers so they've delegated responsibility," he explained.

"Sounds like just your sort," she smiled, sipping sedately from the delicate bowl.

"Master Jinn?"

They turned in unison to behold a forlorn apparition emerging from the second bedroom. Obi Wan bowed deeply to both masters and then moved to join them at a signal from Qui Gon.

"How are your researches progressing?" the Jedi master inquired.

A deep furrow appeared between the boy's brows. "I think Master Li was right," he admitted mournfully.

"Ah, bitter defeat indeed," Qui Gon said wryly. "Master Li is an expert on the history of galactic warfare and especially guerrilla conflicts. You were rash to challenge him."

Tahl scrutinized the boy carefully. "At least _you_ can admit to error, unlike Master Jinn," she observed. "That's a positive sign."

Obi Wan cast a furtive glance at Qui Gon, startled by the abusive tenor of her remark, then dipped his head politely. "With respect, I only admitted that Master Li was right, not that I was wrong."

Tahl smiled and finished her tea. "You're a brave man, Qui."

* * *

The nights were not so cheerful.

On the first, there had been three nightmares; on the second, he discovered the boy curled on the refresher floor, in the aftermath of a sick spell. The Force was disturbed, unsteady, a nauseating panoply of shadow and light.

"I'm Dark."

He slid down the wall and sat on the floor himself. "Why do you think that?"

"I chose death for all those people. And I was angry when the Whiphids attacked me. And I abandoned Mixo Asaro because I was selfish."

Qui Gon centered himself in the Light, anchored them both in its warmth, dispelled some of the ravenous night gathering in the corners and edges of the small room. "I know you see things that way. But I think, in this case, you should admit to error. Tahl was very impressed with you earlier."

"She doesn't know me. I'm no better than Xanatos. Master Dooku should have cut us both down. I'm going to Turn."

The Jedi master frowned over the conundrum huddled beside him. Light danced over the boy fondly, full of promise and hidden purpose. "Is that what you truly _want?"_

"No! But everything I've done has led to suffering. I tried to leave the Temple.. I tried to fix the situation on the Monument… I tried to save Guerra… it all ended up going wrong. I don't understand."

That was a good sign, though. "Then I want you to meditate on this: what has been lacking in all your choices thus far? I think perhaps that when you discover that missing piece your path will not seem so shadowed anymore."

Obi Wan looked up at him, beleaguered hope battling to overcome a rising tide.

It was a beginning.

* * *

Dooku returned to the Temple.

"I'll stay here, if you wish to speak with him privately," Tahl offered.

Qui Gon hesitated, heart clenching in his chest. But the truth must be faced, no matter how painful. "Thank you," he murmured, quietly. Her fingertips brushed against his as she slid past him, across the threshold.

"I'll entertain Obi Wan," she assured him when he did not move.

"Why don't you tell him about your mission to Vetruvia all those years ago?" he suggested. "He has a special interest in the culture."

Tahl's exquisite brows arched upward. "_Vetruvia?_ I won't ask."

He still did not move.

"Go," she urged him.

So he went, letting the door slide closed behind him, an opaque barrier between past and future. He steadied his breath and armored himself in the present moment, and whatever truth it brought.

He went to find Dooku, and his steps did not falter.

* * *

"Qui Gon."

He bowed to the Jedi who had once been his master – guide, mentor, teacher… though never quite father figure. Dooku had aged with the passing decades. His aristocratic face was deeply lined, his dark hair streaked with wide swaths of silver. Weariness lurked in his gaze – not a weariness that devoured his sprightly physical energy; rather one that gnawed at the soul. Qui Gon wondered at that. Would he too be so weighted with age in twenty years? Yoda did not seem half the age of this man, though he was well over eight hundred years old.

Dooku's cloak was almost ebony, it was so dark. He nodded grimly in the direction of the outside balcony. "Walk with me," he invited, a degree of softness in his inflection.

They walked.

"He said Shadows had been sent to watch him," Qui Gon said at length.

There was no question of whom he spoke. The older man's mouth tightened. "Your disapproval is ill-placed," he chastised his former Padawan. "The Order is well aware of the dangers posed by its excommunicated members. A lapsed Jedi is one step from a Sith."

"The Sith have been extinct for a thousand years. And you yourself said that his choice was understandable, a difficult one to make. He chose natural bonds over Force given ones."

Dooku's shoulders rose slightly, then relaxed. "At first."

"To be watched….he was prone to nerviness. Such action may have driven him to paranoia."

"Doubtless," Dooku replied. "A good sculptor, Qui Gon, uses the chisel to best effect upon natural fault lines."

They stopped. "The Council _provoked_ him into a fall?" Qui Gon felt the hair rise on the nape of his neck, a chill spread from his center out to every limb. His pulse beat hard, defiant, outraged, in his ears.

His former mentor waved a dismissive hand at him. "Such melodrama, Qui Gon. A flawed thing does not break because of the test; the test reveals what is already the case. There was no _scheme_ to destroy DuCrion."

They walked again. "You did not kill him."

"There was no need."

They walked, and Qui Gon did not see the beauty of the Temple around them, nor the others who passed by.

"You volunteered. Why?"

"I felt a concern in the matter because DuCrion was once your concern."

In his foolish youth, Qui Gon might have misinterpreted this as affection, or paternal feeling. He was wiser now, and their relationship was therefore more harmonious, less prone to misunderstanding. Dooku felt responsibility – ownership – for what proceeded in his lineage. That was all.

"He does not care for imprisonment," Dooku remarked coldly. "But time will tell. I will oversee his case myself, of course."

"Of course. Thank you, master."

Dooku nodded, regally. "It is my duty." Gratitude was not necessary, for there had been no gift given.

They stopped at the base to the Coucnil spire. "I must make the report now," Dooku told him. "May the Force be with you."

And then he was gone, the burnished lift doors closing between them, as gleaming and flawless as their former partnership, as the cold and perfect understanding between them.

* * *

Obi Wan was chattering animatedly to Tahl when he returned.

"And then he informed me that he made his living on Phindar by means of _unstealing_ items pilfered by other individuals or corporate interests. He's even invented a device for hacking computer security systems. I forget what he called it… but he takes an indecent pride in the accomplishment. I should like to meet this brother of his, though: Paxxi sounds a bit like Garen Muln. He was in the Dragon Clan with me, only he joined the pilot program last year. Did you know him, master?"

Tahl shook her head. "Sadly, no. Does your friend Garen _unsteal_ things as well?"

Obi Wan smirked. "Garen has only ever indulged in straightforward thievery, such as taking extra rations from the commissary, or other people's blankets on a cold ni-" His jest broke off sharply at Qui Gon's entrance.

Tahl slewed about. "Qui."

"I'm fine."

They all three stood, embarrassed by his grief. Obi Wan discreetly disappeared into the smaller bedroom, trailing his own cloud of misgiving. Tahl frowned after him.

"We'll talk later," he said heavily. "I should.."

"Yes," she agreed. "You should move on."

He nodded. Tahl always understood. He turned to her, wishing to express the gratitude welling in his heart, but she simply smiled and melted away through the door, as elusive as the words which hung unspoken between them.

* * *

"He's dead, too, isn't he?"

Qui Gon sat on the edge of the bed, cleared the pile of holobooks off the rumpled coverlet. "No. He is..imprisoned."

"Imprisoned?" the boy repeated. "But –"

"There are… places… where a fallen Jedi might be safely held," Qui Gon explained, cautiously. "In hopes that he will eventually come back to the Light."

Obi Wan watched him, face blank. "Prisons."

"The Dark Side is a prison worse than any other, " Qui Gon replied. "Anything else is merely protection for those outside it."

The boy twisted his fingers together, then deliberately stilled his hands. He looked up, eyes questing over Qui Gon's face, a faint line marring his forehead. "It's worse than death," he said.

"Yes," Qui Gon sighed. "I did not mean to disturb you with my grief, Obi Wan. I will meditate and release it to the Force. And we can discuss it more later, if you wish."

The young Jedi still watched him, pity kindling in his eyes. Qui Gon felt words fail him for the second time. So he rose, and squeezed the boy's shoulder in parting, and retreated to his solitude and what comfort the Force could give.

Obi Wan followed him and knelt beside him on the small outdoor balcony, saying not a word. The sun set, weeping radiance over the city, staining the walls of the Temple, heralding the unseen stars above. And there was a strange peace in the moment, though grief wrapped them both in its heavy mantle.

* * *

"Master."

Dawn brought change. And the first was the crystal resonance of that word, uttered with a new certainty, a subtle shift in connotation. Qui Gon felt the Living Force gather in the moment, filling the interstices between heartbeats, the space between age and youth, smoothing paths and dissolving obstacles. He breathed in. "Yes."

Obi Wan sat across from him, and there was another difference. "You said to find the part that was missing in all my choices." He frowned. "I don't think I can find it on my own. I need help."

And that was the second difference. He studied the boy, as though seeing him for the first time again, almost three years ago in the crèche playroom. This beginning had been too long delayed. He released a soft breath of thanksgiving.

"I will help you. But I want your honesty in exchange. Why did you refuse Mixo Asaro's offer of apprenticeship three times?"

Obi Wan held his gaze, through two long breaths, seeking words. Then he seemed to surrender some internal struggle. "I – because I expected you to return and ask me to be your Padawan," he said. "I knew. Because of a vision."

Qui Gon nodded. Another difference. "And why did you refuse me when I did ask, after his death?"

The boy watched him now, coloring a little. He drew in a shaking breath. "I felt responsible for his death. I still do."

"That doesn't answer my question. Why did you refuse an offer of guidance?"

Obi Wan swallowed.

Qui Gon pressed his advantage. "Why did you _run_ from the opportunity for direction and counsel? That is what your bid for an Ag-Corps assignment was. Why did you board the freighter without waiting for an experienced escort? That was asking for trouble, too. Why did you deliberately ignore my orders on board the Monument? You tackled Xanatos alone, recklessly, without help. Why?"

Silence. But Qui Gon was patient. He felt the answer coming, on the horizon, inevitable. And he smiled, because Obi Wan _would _admit error. They were almost done. And when they were done, they could begin.

"What is missing in all these choices, Obi Wan?"

The boy was Jedi. He did not turn from the truth. "Obedience," he answered quietly.

The Force stilled into a soundless tone, resonant as a saber crystal.

And they started anew.

* * *

The Council did not appear nearly so surprised as Qui Gon had anticipated. He stood in the center of the mosaic floor, Obi Wan standing directly before him. His hands rested lightly, protectively, on the boy's shoulders. The declaration of apprenticeship had been issued in ringing tones of certainty, laced with challenge. Yet not a flicker of annoyance did he feel in the Force. Indeed, there was more than a little _amusement_ rippling around the circular room.

"A fine choice," Mace Windu stated, nodding his head. "May the Force be with both of you. The Council approves unanimously, am I right?" He glanced about the room briefly, and collected a handful of nods and small smiles.

Qui Gon was momentarily dumbstruck.

"Something more to say, have you, Master Qui Gon?" Yoda asked.

"Ah…no, master. I simply thought perhaps I might have to argue the case more strenuously."

Ki Adi Mundi chuckled and ran a hand over his pointed beard, now showing substantial streaks of pure white. "You refer to the Council's previous advice that you not seek another Padawan?"

Qui Gon bowed to him in acknowledgement. "Has that judgment been changed?" he inquired.

"No longer necessary is it," Yoda explained, explaining nothing.

Qui Gon could feel Obi Wan shift a little beneath his hands. He pressed down firmly. _Control. Patience, young one._

"I do not understand, my masters," Qui Gon protested.

Mace steepled his fingers together and regarded him solemnly. "It's simple," he said, his rich voice conveying a minutely textured enjoyment. "The most effective way to motivate you is to provide an occasion for defying the Council's wishes."

Obi Wan tensed, impish delight flickering invisibly about him, in the Force. Qui Gon squeezed harder. _Calm. Control._

"I see," he said, tightly. _You will pay for that later, Mace._

"Dismissed you both are," Yoda rasped. "Depart you should, Qui Gon, before your Padawan into unseemly laughing fit collapses."

Master and apprentice bowed as deeply as they could, the latter now crimson with embarrassment, the former grumbling inwardly at the feeling of Yoda's goblin grin of triumph beating against his awareness, an ethereal buffeting of mingled humor and benediction.

They fled the Council chamber together.

* * *

Qui Gon twisted the thin strands of hair together, in the traditional ritual, binding and weaving separate elements into a tight plait.

There were three: master, Padawan, the Force. These three were bound in obedience. The younger was bound to the older's guidance, so that he would not stray off the narrow path, so that he could walk in safety in the Light, until he was wise enough to do so on his own. The older was bound to the Force, a sure and steady guide, inalienable compass, inner Light, until he perished and became one with the universal life, no longer able to Fall. The Force bound them to itself, together, to their mutual path, in the ageless and intricate pattern of willing submission.

Obedience. He twisted the braid one last time, admired his handiwork. . "Teacher, student, the Force. They are one," he said, binding the end of the short plait. A tiny strand of crimson thread wrapped around the braid just above the binding.

"What is that for?"Obi Wan asked. Colored threads signified achievements or important life events in an apprenticeship.

"Crimson is for a trial of spirit," Qui Gon said, tying off the end of the thread. "An unusual color for your first marker, but we do not choose our own paths. I honor your ordeal at Xanatos' hands."

The boy fidgeted. "I don't think –"

"Padawan," Qui Gon said severely. "You would do well not to contradict me."

Obi Wan flushed, in imitation of the crimson thread. "Oh. Forgive me, master."

"With pleasure. Don't ever exhibit such brazen insolence again."

"Yes, master." A moment of quiet, in which the boy fingered the end of his braid, curious and pleased. A shadow fell over his face. "Master?"

"What is it?"

"We never did discuss the consequences of my insubordination, as you said."

Qui Gon paused. "Hm. I cannot absolve you of them entirely. But I will grant you this reprieve: you are spared any punishment until the occasion of your _second_ egregious offense, at which time you can pay both debts in full."

Obi Wan considered this gravely. Flickering tongues of mischief leapt and played in the Force. "Yes,master." He tucked his chin down and studied the floor with gleaming eyes. Qui Gon waited for the punchline. "I shall be sure to make that second offense worthwhile, then."

Qui Gon kept his face straight. "Master Dooku – who was my teacher – would have deemed such flippancy worthy of at least forty push-ups," he said conversationally.

"But you are not Master Dooku."

"No, Obi Wan, I am not. Our relationship is different."

The boy's smile could light up a whole room.

"…Which is why you will be doing _sixty_ for me. Right now." He pointed to the floor, sternly. His apprentice dropped into position with a grimace, and Qui Gon placed a foot lightly on his back.

"Master!" Obi Wan grunted as he struggled to rise with Qui Gon's boot exerting a firm pressure between his shoulder blades.

"Fifty-nine to go, my insolent Padawan."

* * *

BenTo Li was no less smug than the Council had been.

"Well," he drawled, "I see you have decided to make the adoption permanent."

Qui Gon glared at him. "Just give us clearance for full active duty."

The healer chivvied Obi Wan into the exam room and set to poking and prodding.

"No lingering stiffness? Good. Let's see… yes, that shoulder is fine. Lie back. Hm. Yes… does that hurt? No? What a pity.. Hold still, Padawan, I'm not done with you yet. Hm… no, I think you're fine neurologically, though I must say Master Qui Gon would do well to continue using an electrocollar – ha! Now, let's see..oh yes. Nightmares recently?"

Obi Wan looked to Qui Gon.

"Yes, but we're dealing with them as they come. There's no need to get the mind healers involved again," Qui Gon assured him.

Master Li harrumphed. "I suppose there's no harm in releasing him. I'll be seeing one or both of you after your next mission, anyhow, so why should I fret overmuch about it?"

"Don't' mind him, Padawan, he takes delight in tormenting his victims."

The healer signed the release and promptly evicted the pair of them from the medical ward, muttering harmless imprecations under his breath.

* * *

"Good to see you again, Obawan! Looking much better, I think!"

"Are you staying long, Guerra?"

"Yes- taking a vaction here, extended stay and luxury accommodations. Not so, I lie! Back to Phindar for me. Much to be done, and many people waiting. But I came to be saying good bye and thank you again, true fact."

Qui Gon watched the boy _allow_ the Phindina to embrace him. He took it with diplomatic equanimity. Indeed, one who did not know better than to think such a thing of an aspiring Jedi Knight would suppose that he actually enjoyed it, that his participation in the gesture was more than obligatory good manners.

"May the Force be with you, Guerra."

"No worries, Obawan! I am fixing all of Phindar's problems by my own self."

"Not so, you lie."

Qui Gon bowed to the enthusiastic Phindian. "If ever your people require help, Guerra, Obi Wan and I shall be at your service."

"I am holding you to that promise, Jedi Gon – no lie!"

They watched his cloudcar retreat into the busy skyline, aware that the promise had not been made lightly.

"Do you think we will ever go to Phindar and see him again, master?"

"If the Force wills it. In the meanwhile, we have two and a half years of wasted time to make up for. Shall we?"

He reached out an arm, and pulled the boy sideways into a one-armed embrace, which Obi Wan again endured with perfect diplomatic equanimity…even smiling a bit.

They walked back into the shelter of the Temple, side by side, master and apprentice, in a gentle accord. And the Force was sonorous with approval.

* * *

END BOOK I


End file.
